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Poland Adopts Law on National Minorities
Monday, May 16, 2005 1:20 PM
Poland's new law on national minorities came into force on 1 May -- the first anniversary of Poland's accession to the European Union. The date is significant, since EU legislation makes a number of provisions for such minorities (for example, financial assistance for minority-language activities), and new and intending members are expected to "harmonize" their own legal provisions to EU norms. However, on the eve of the act's coming into force, the Polish newspaper "Polityka" commented that while it will "soothe many flashpoints," it will "also ignite new ones."
Under the new law, individual members of a minority have the right to spell their names and surnames according to the orthographies of their own language, to learn the minority language and to use it freely in public and private life. In communes (the lowest local administrative territorial unit) where the minority comprises more than 20 percent of the population, its language may be used as a supplementary language in public offices and used in the names of localities, sites, and streets (with the exception of those names which were given by the Third Reich or the USSR between 1933-45). Public authorities are obliged by the law to support cultural, publishing, and educational activities of minorities, including through subsidies.
The proposal to pass a special act addressing minority rights long precedes preparations for EU accession. The issue was first raised back in 1990 by Jacek Kuron -- who at the time was minister for social welfare in Poland's first post-Communist government, as well as being of part-Ukrainian descent -- but it took over 14 years for the legislation to be drafted and enacted.
These delays were not unexpected. There is, according to "Polityka," considerable xenophobia -- latent and overt -- among both the Polish population at large and in political circles. It cited a survey carried out by CBOS Public Opinion Research Surveys at the end of 2004 which indicated the percentage of Poles with negative attitudes toward the following national groups and ethnicities that make up Poland's minorities: Roma (56 percent), Russians (53 percent), Jews (45 percent), Belarusians (37 percent), Ukrainians (34 percent), Germans (34 percent), Lithuanians (21 percent), Slovaks (16 percent), Czechs (14 percent).
The minorities, on their side, complain that official figures understate their presence: 2002 census figures put Poland's entire "minority" population at 471,000, 1.5 percent of the total population. Minority activists, however, claim the figure should be at least 5 percent, and say the discrepancy is due to either pressure to assimilate, "poor" census-taking methodology, and -- in the case of ethnic Belarusians -- a reluctance to be identified with the Lukashenka regime. (By contrast, Ukrainian community leaders in Poland report that since Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Polish perceptions of Ukrainians have grown considerably more positive.)
Some provisions of the law, and the long delays in formulating it, were clearly driven by recent history -- both the Nazi occupation during World War II as well as the ethnic strife of the interwar period in areas then under Polish rule, but which now form parts of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.
Kuron had proposed that at commune level, the local language could be used for official purposes if 8 percent or more of the population identified themselves as belonging to the minority. This applied to 48 communes throughout Poland. Subsequently, the minimum was raised to 20 percent, applying to 42 communes. Then, in autumn 2004, the Sejm voted for a 50-percent threshold, which would give statutory language rights to only five communes -- four Belarusian and one Lithuanian. The Senate, however, rejected this, and the final level remained at 20 percent. Those 42 communes include Belarusian, Lithuanian, German, and Kashubian minority communities, but not Ukrainians, owing to the resettlement policy of Ukrainians throughout Poland immediately after World War II.
The ban on names introduced under occupation by the Third Reich or the Soviet Union seems, however, to be more than a legacy of the past. According to "Polityka," Poland's German minority appears strangely reluctant to abandon Nazi-era names, even those incorporating references to Adolf Hitler, which would be banned in Germany itself. However, the law would also appear to rule out "neutral" names -- that of a Lithuanian or Belarusian poet, for example -- if they had been introduced during occupation.
In general, Polish public opinion is not pleased by the place-name provisions. In a CBOS survey conducted in early April, 63 percent opposed bilingual names, with only 26 percent in favor. Likewise, 52 percent objected to the introduction of minority languages in public offices, with 37 percent in favor. However, in the same survey, 82 percent thought that minorities had the right to learn their own languages in Polish state schools (11 percent disagreed), and a surprisingly high 41 percent approved state subsidies for minority cultures, such as for publications.
As far as the minorities themselves are concerned, it is perhaps not so much the provisions of the act themselves, but how they are implemented which is important. Two recent grievances of the Belarusian minority are significant here. Last autumn, 10 Belarusian journalists and publishers from the Belarusian-language newspaper "Niva" based in Bialystok were charged with misuse of state funds and dishonest bookkeeping (see "RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report," 15 December 2005) Their offense, it turned out, was attempting to "stretch" the paper's state subsidy past its official "use-by" date, in order to keep the paper afloat until the next subsidy came in.
At almost the same time, the Belarusian community in the region reported what they perceived as pressure on schools providing additional courses in Belarusian -- an intensification of state inspections and a new requirement for parents to make a special written application for the courses each year. The Belarusians perceived these moves as a threat -- a way of establishing a legal pretext for shutting down the schools, or at least the special courses.
Both these cases, incidentally, formed the subject of an appeal to EU authorities -- although, significantly, the appeal came not from Bialystok but from the Association of Belarusians in Great Britain.
Other appeals to Brussels or Strasbourg may well arise from the new act itself, but not necessarily from the minorities whose rights it embodies. Silesians and Kashubians, whom the act largely ignores, maintain that they are also "nations," and intend to appeal to the EU that they, too, should benefit from the act -- which could mean a revision affecting all the minorities concerned. "Poland Adopts Law on National Minorities." Vera Rich. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Volume 7, Number 18. 11 May 2005. Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission or Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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