CIVIC ENGAGEMENT MOVEMENT CIVIL ELKTELEZETTSG MOZGALOM MICAREA ANGAJAMENT CIVIC

Shadow Report to the Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania

Trgu Mure/Marosvsrhely

January 2011

str. Deva 3/Dvai u. 3, 540430 Trgu-Mure/Marosvsrhely, Romania Tel.: +40-747-340.962, E-mail: info@cemo.ro www.cemo.ro

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgments..6 BRIEF PRESENTATION ROMANIA ................................................................................................. 7 The History of Transylvania ................................................................................................................ 9 Nationalities Policy under the Communists ........................................................................ 11 Comments related to the language overviews as presented in the First Initial Periodical Report .. 14 Comments on Article 6 as presented in the First Periodical Report .................................................. 17 The site of our study: Mure/ Maros County ..................................................................................... 18 Bilingual street names ......................................................................................................... 24 ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITIES AND PUBLIC SERVICES ................................................... 27 Presentation of the Romanian Administration System ...................................................................... 27 Legal Background .............................................................................................................................. 28 Research and Results.......................................................................................................................... 30 Correspondence with the authorities................................................................................... 30 Bilingual official documents ................................................................................................ 38 Case studies ......................................................................................................................... 41 Survey conducted in local-self governments and mayors offices of Mure/ Maros County43 Conclusions and Recommendations .................................................................................................... 49 EDUCATION ...................................................................................................................................... 52 Legal Background .............................................................................................................................. 52 Educational polices during the communist regime ............................................................................ 55 Education in Mure/Maros County .................................................................................................... 59 The Implementation of the Charter .................................................................................................... 61 Case study: Enrollment Plan in Mure/Maros County ................................................... 62 Vocational Education in Mure/Maros County ................................................................... 64 Teaching of History and Geography ................................................................................... 66 Linguistic Landscape in the schools of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely .............................. 67 Case study: Bilingualism in schools ............................................................................... 75 Education of the Romanian Language ................................................................................ 80 Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................................................................... 82 List of Documents ............................................................................................................................... 86

1 INTRODUCTION
Romania signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in July 1995. Fourteen years later, on 29 January 2009, the country published the Law on the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECMRL) (Law nr. 282 from 24 October 2007) that entered into force on 1 May 2008. The Law on Ratification (282/2007, October 24) states that the provisions of the Charter will apply to ten minority languages used in Romania, including Hungarian, the language examined in our Report. The Charter ensures the use of regional and minority languages in various and significant areas of life including education, public administration, the judicial system, and media and in the context of social life and cultural activities. The Charter promotes the use of regional or minority languages in public and private life, considering that these languages contribute to the maintenance and development of Europes cultural wealth and traditions. The Charter defines as regional or minority languages the languages which are traditionally used within a given territory of a state by nationals of that state who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the states population (Article 1.a). These languages are different from the official languages of the state. The preparation of the present report was initiated by a small group of professionals (human rights advocates, volunteers of our non-governmental organization (NGO)) working in a grassroots organization that operates in the multicultural town in Romania of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. Given the grassroots character of the NGO, its lack of personnel and sufficient funding, the Report will focus mainly on the town of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, the capital of Mure/ Maros County, which will also be examined in th is report from the perspective of the ECMRL implementation in relation to the Hungarian language. It is important to mention that the preparation of the Report was entirely funded from our own resources; we have not applied for funding nor received financial support from any other organization, including from any state institutions. Regarding human resources, we worked with our own staff, including the volunteers of our NGO with no support from other NGOs or state institutions. We contacted several grassroots NGOs from other counties with the aim to cooperate and jointly prepare this Report that would have embraced their fact finding and analysis. However, these attempts were unsuccessful given the heavy workload of other NGO representatives and the lack of experience in this particular field. Therefore we chose to carry out the present work on our own. We sincerely hope that our work will be able to highlight some of the discrepancies related to the ECMRL implementation and will also contribute to preparation and accomplishment of an efficient solution-finding process, as well as to its real-life realization. Let us present you shortly our NGO to make clear and highlight the viewpoints and criteria used during the preparation of the Report. Civic Engagement Movement/CEMO was founded in 2007 by a group of intellectuals and activists who are firmly convinced there is a great need to educate, advocate and sustain the greater public to bring significant change in the present life of the society. The mission of CEMO is to actively and effectively contribute to the encouragement and increase of a rights-based attitude within the society through advocacy, community development, and civic education. CEMO is an NGO founded to promote civic engagement, as well as an informed and active citizenship with a focus on solidarity, tolerance and diversity and greater participation in democracy and society through a combination of public awareness projects. These public awareness projects include: advocacy projects, civic education, community development projects, research, discussions, and debates. The NGO encourages increased democratic participation by all the community members with a special emphasis on the young generation through the education of active citizenship and civic engagement. As mentioned above, the NGO was founded by a group of intellectuals with extensive experience acquired in the NGO field, and who also have extensive professional experience. Among the founders are human rights lawyers, professional trainers, and advocacy

experts. The Executive Director of CEMO, Ms. Szigeti Enik, worked in international organizations such as the United Nations (in the Balkans) and the Public Interest Law Initiative (www.pili.org). Additionally, she worked in multicultural environments for more than a decade and following this extensive experience, she moved back to her home town in Romania, and initiated, among others, the foundation of CEMO. CEMO works toward its mission through three major approaches: Training and Education, Advocacy, and Online Activism. The organization developed its Training and Education Program with the aim to promote civic education and participation. We are planning to achieve our goal by building the capacity of citizens through formal and informal education to develop the confidence, skills, and knowledge needed to engage in civil society activities. Our Education programs include Civic Education and Education for Active Citizenship in schools, as well as education and training initiatives for adults. CEMO organized several trainings and series of trainings alongside the continuous Human Rights Education activities that have been implemented in several schools within Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. CEMO organized a number of international trainings covering the issues of active civic participation, volunteering, and intercultural dialogue, as well as conflict resolution within multi-ethnic communities. The Advocacy Program is designed to complement our Training Education Program and make our overall objective become achievable and realistic. CEMO is planning to advocate for active participation of people with the aim to change peoples present attitudes and make them feel more responsible for what is happening in their life and around them. Our Advocacy Program includes various activities such as Advocacy Campaigns, Public Awareness Campaigns, Public Forums, and last but not least, Case Studies and Monitoring. It is essential to highlight the practice-oriented aspect of our work due to the fact that this element strongly influenced us while preparing our Report. Due to these principles, we have compiled and will present a series of problematic events, situations that our NGO selected for solutions, as well as several that were brought to our knowledge by our NGOs real-life clients who have contacted us to help them solve their problems regarding language rights, specifically the use of Hungarian language within state institutions (e.g. schools and local and public administration). In addition to the Case Studies, the Report will present a number of field investigations, statistics, and surveys carried out by our NGO with the aim to make visible the results related to the implementation of the ECMRL within Mure/ Maros County, with a special focus on the county capital, Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. The results of our fact-finding efforts are the consequences of a two-year constant monitoring process related to the implementation of the ECMRL, focusing on the Hungarian language, as this region is inhabited by a large number of Hungarians. The Report will present, in detail, statistics related to the population, as well as the languages spoken within Mure/ Maros County. Starting with a broad presentation on Romania and its languages, as well as minority policies, the report will continue with a general presentation of Mure/ Maros County and the county capital of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. The Report will continue with surveys and examinations that will focus on the implementation of the ECMRL in two distinct areas public administration (ECMRL: Part III, Article 10) and Education (ECMRL: Part III, Article 8). Also, it will also describe the language landscape of the county capital with the aim to show a clear picture of the present situation from the perspective of the Hungarian language, which is specific to this Region and is spoken by almost 40 per cent of its inhabitants. Given the character of the studied Region, the prerequisite of the Charter in relation to the regional or minority language is applicable to the language (Hungarian) examined in our Report given that the Charter defines as regional or minority languages the languages which are traditionally used within a given 4

territory of a state by nationals of that state who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the states population (ECMRL: Part I, Article 1.a/i). It is also relevant to emphasize that the region and territory chosen to be examined by us is concordant with the Charter which stipulates that territory in which the regional and minority language is used means the geographical area in which the said language is a mode of expression of a number of people, justifying the adoption of various protective and promotional measures. (ECMRL: Part I, Article b). (See the presentation of the Region at: Part 1 of this Report) We would like to emphasize that our report does not intend to be a negative critique of the Romanian state and public authorities. On the contrary, with our research and analysis, we intend to present data and results of examinations that will enable strengthening and supporting the efficient implementation of the ECMRL within the Mure/ Maros County, as well as throughout the country. We hope that by revealing best practices models, as well as through the presentations of the implementations deficiencies and apparent failures, alongside with our recommendations that we consider prospective tools for an efficient creation of a fair and just language policy within and outside of Mure/ Maros County, we can become reliable partners throughout the future implementation process of the ECMRL.

1.1 Acknowledgments
The Report is a result of the work, persistence and willpower of a group of people. These people have contributed to its successful completion with an extensive series of inputs. We are very grateful and we highly appreciate the help and support of those who contributed to the successful finalization of the present Report. The main writer of the Report was Szigeti Enik, the co-founder and the executive director of the Civic Engagement Movement, who was supported throughout the entire creation processs by Horvth-Kovcs dm, the founding partner of the NGO. The Report was critically reviewed by Molnar Zoltn. Batizn Emese Emke and Csontos Annamria were instrumental in organising and sorting the graphs and charts of the Report. In the publishing process, the copy-editing was done by Chole Current. And last but not least we need to mention the contribution of the NGOs volunteers who carried out the schools surveys as well as the public administration research and supported us in the realization of the Report.

The entire contents of this publication are copyright. 2011 Civic Engagament Movement (CEMO) No part of this publication may be sold in any form or reproduced for sale without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

2 Brief Presentation Romania

In this part of the Report we would like to briefly describe Romania, including the present situation of the ethnic minorities living within the countrys borders from the perspective of minority, as well as language rights. The main languages spoken in Romania are: Romanian (official language) Hungarian German Romani Ukrainian/Ruthene Lipovan (Russian) According to the 2002 census, minority groups include: Hungarians 1,431,807 (6.6 per cent) Roma 535,140 (2.5 per cent) Ukrainians/Ruthenians 61,098 (0.3 per cent) Germans 59,764 (0.3 per cent). The European Commission (2004) estimated the Roma population within the country at between 1,800,000 and 2,500,000. The number of Germans fell considerably between 1992 (119,436) and 2002 (59,764), due to emigration to Germany. Hungarians are officially the most numerous minority in Romania (although likely outnumbered by Roma) and are overwhelmingly settled in Transylvania. The most compact area of Hungarian population is in Eastern Transylvania, where Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely and Mure County is located. This has historically been the home of the Sekler (Szkely in Hungarian, Secui in Romanian) people. Seklers, who entered Transylvania at the end of the first millennium, hold a special (and recent) place in Hungarian national mythology. They are regarded as speaking the purest form of the Hungarian language and as embodying such national virtues as orderliness, resilience, and reliability. Most Seklers describe themselves, however, on official documents as Hungarians. An additional subgroup within the Hungarian ethnic community is the Csango-Hungarians of Moldavia (see below), who live in scattered rural communities near the Transylvanian border. Hungarians are Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans or Unitarians and are thus confessionally different from ethnic Romanians, most of whom are Eastern Orthodox or Greek Catholic. There are minorities that live in smaller number in the territory of Romania, according to the 2002 census: 35,791 Russians/Lipovans (0.2 per cent); 32,098 Turks (0.2 per cent); 23,935 Tatars; 22,561 Serbs; 17,226 Slovaks; 8,025 Bulgarians; 6,807 Croats; 6,472,Greeks; 5,785 Jews; 3,941 Czechs; 3,559 Poles; 3,288 Italians; 2,243 Chinese; 1,780 Armenians, Albanians 520 (per cent), Macedonians, In addition, the 2002 census recorded 1,266 Csango-Hungarians, 16,850 others and 1,941 who chose not to declare any specific ethnic identity. Serbs, Croats, Poles, Czechs and some Slovaks, Roman Catholic Bulgarians and Ukrainians live mainly in the Banat region near the border with Serbia although many Serbs were forcibly resettled after 1948 in Wallachia. Another part of the Slovak community lives by the Hungarian border, while the Eastern Orthodox Bulgarians live in Dambovita County, in Southern Romania. Ukrainians also live in Maramure and South-Bukovina in the North and in the Danube estuary area in the South. The Poles mainly live in the North of Moldova around the city of Suceava. The Turks and Tatars live mainly in the Dobrudja near the Danube estuary. The few Italians live mostly in the North of Moldova around the city of Iasi. Albanians and Armenians are mainly concentrated in the capital, Bucharest, but some Armenians live in Transylvania too. 7

The majority of Germans also live in Transylvania, where they comprise three separate groups: Saxons who are the descendants of Germans who entered Transylvania in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; Swabians who are descended from southern Germans who settled mainly in the Banat area in south-west Transylvania during the eighteenth century; and the small group of Landler who are descended from Protestants who took refuge in northern Transylvania in the eighteenth century. The majority of the Ukrainians/Ruthenes live in northern Transylvania in Maramure County. Until 2000 the Ruthenians were officially seen as belonging to the Ukrainian national minority but following parliamentary elections that year, the Ruthenians were recognized as a separate national minority (as were the Macedonians who had similarly previously been unrecognized officially). The Roma, who are believed to be the largest minority, are found throughout Romania. The communist regime of Nicolae Ceauescu was overthrown in December 1989 and a democratic state proclaimed. In December 1991, Romanians approved a new constitution by referendum. The constitution defines Romania as a nation state, sovereign, unitary and indivisible (1st Article). It guarantees minorities the right to the preservation, development and expression of identity, including education in the mother tongue, and affirms the equality of rights and freedom from discrimination. The constitution additionally provides for deputies appointed by national minorities to be represented in the parliament. Since 1990, conditions for minorities have gradually improved despite some initial violent inter-ethnic incidents. After the revolution of 1989, Hungarians rapidly asserted their rights and aroused Romanian animosities. In March 1990, inter-ethnic fighting broke out in the Transylvanian city of Tirgu-Mures/ Marosvasarhely, the location examined in the present Report. The conflict left at least six people dead. Since then, however, relations between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania have been peaceful but often tense, including in Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, where the above-mentioned conflict left many lingering wounds in the Romanian and Hungarian communities. Despite extremist statements and provocations from right-wing Romanian parties, including the threatened demolition of Hungarian cultural monuments and the publication of racist literature and speeches, the situation has since not escalated into violent conflict. In May 1990 the government issued a regulation expanding minority-language education. With considerable financial support from foreign foundations and the neighboring states of national minorities living within Romania, minority cultural facilities and publications operated freely, and minority-language television and radio broadcasts were extended. In 1993, the government set up a Council for National Minorities to monitor and advise on minority affairs. Increasingly, Romania viewed itself as a candidate for European Union membership, giving added impetus to minority rights reforms. Voters approved a package of amendments to Romanias constitution in 2003 that included new legal guarantees for minority rights. Among the provisions, national minorities gained the right to engage government administrators and courts in their native languages. (http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid=3521&tmpl=printpage). Minorities are politically represented at both the national and local level. In 1996 the Hungarian political party, the Democratic Union of the Hungarians of Romania (DAHR), acted in the opposition. From 1996, the party governed in a coalition with the Romanian Democratic Convention. Subsequently, the formerly in opposition Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSD) won the 2000 elections and DAHR did not become part of that ruling coalition. After the 2004 elections, DAHR once again became a coalition partner and obtained positions in the government. Following the 2008 Romanian legislative elections DAHR entered in the opposition and at present is a coalition member of the Romanian government.

2.1 The History of Transylvania

The central issue in the history of Transylvania is that there are separate Romanian and Hungarian histories, both firmly articulated and neither acceptable in its national version to the other. A sense of history is a basic component of any community and from the 19th century onwards, there was a well-established tradition of nationalist history writing, which is the writing of an ideologically committed variant of the history of a community, which serves the national cohesion of that community. As far as Romanians and Hungarians are concerned, Transylvania (Transilvania or Ardeal in Romanian; Erdly in Hungarian; and Siebenburgen in German) has been invested with a mystical role as having been the region, which ensured the survival of the nation and its separate existence over the centuries. In other words, for both national ideologies, Transylvania plays a role quite separate from the physical, geographic, demographic, territorial and economic factors that are involved. Figuratively, Transylvania is the Ark of the Covenant and for national ideologists, the ideal homeland of the nation is unacceptable without the province being part of the state territory. Thus in practical terms, neither Romanian nor Hungarian nationalists can accept that Transylvania should be part of the other states territory and both accept a nationalist imperative that it should belong to them. In this kind of emotionally charged atmosphere, the rights of minorities are easily ignored and, indeed, their articulation may be treated as evidence of irredentism. According to the Romanian nationalist version of the history of Transylvania, the inhabitants of the province in the first and second centuries AD, the Dacians, were conquered by the Roman Empire and annexed to it. There followed a rapid fusion of Dacian and Latin cultures, the result of which was the birth of the Romanian national culture. After the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the Dacians or, more properly DacoRomans, withdrew to their Transylvanian mountain fastnesses and remained there, conserving their Latin language and culture. Transylvania remained the safe haven of the Romanian nation, despite waves of foreign invaders and conquerors Avars, Scythians, Turks and Hungarians the Romanian substance remained safe, protected by the mountainous geography of the province. This is known as the Daco-Roman continuity theory. From the earliest times, the dominant imperative of Romanian history was to unify the three Romanian lands Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Unification, Romanian historians go out of their way to stress, was the objective of every major ruler and was achieved by Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul) in 15991600, albeit it lasted only a year. The age-old striving was finally crowned with success in 1918 when the Kingdom of Hungary collapsed and the representatives of the Romanian people declared the unification of Transylvania with the Regat at Alba Iulia. Thereafter, with the exception of the partition of Transylvania in 1940-1944, the province has been ruled by the Romanian nation. The Hungarian version of this story is rather different. Hungarian historians reject the Daco-Roman continuity theory and argue that when the Hungarian conquest of the central Danube basin took place at the end of the 9th century AD, Transylvania was terra inoccupata at best, Slavonic tribes sparsely inhabited it. The Hungarian Kingdom gradually extended its organization over the region, settling the Szeklers and the Saxon colonists to strengthen its economic development. The county (varmegye) system was introduced only into certain regions while elsewhere there was local autonomy through a system of seats (szek). The presence of a Romanian population is accounted for by immigration. Hungarians argue that nomadic Romanian shepherds, practicing transhumance, just as the Kutzo-Vlachs of Macedonia continue to do so to this day, crossed the Carpathian passes from the 13th century onwards and were given the right to settle by the Hungarian rulers of the province. The mixed character of Transylvania was recognized very early by the so-called Union of Three Nations (in 1437, reaffirmed in 1542). The three nations, properly nationes, represented the nobility against the other 9

classes and should in no sense be regarded as nations in the modern usage; in the Transylvanian case they were the Magyars, the Saxons and the Szeklers. After the destruction of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire, following on the Battle of Mohacs (1526), Transylvania retained a precarious autonomy between the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans. At times, it acted as an independent state and signed the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years War, in that capacity. The different nature of Transylvania was recognized after the expulsion of the Turks by its separate incorporation into the Hapsburg domains as a principality apart from Hungary proper. In 1848-49, the Transylvanian diet, which was controlled by the Hungarian nobility, opted for union with Hungary, despite the hostility of both Romanians and Saxons and after the 1867 Ausgleich (compromise) this was implemented. The Hungarians thereafter promoted a policy of rapid Magyarization this was ineffective in the countryside and, only partly successful in the towns, at least as far as the Romanians were concerned such that all the nationalities turned against the Hungarian state in 1918. By the Treaty of Trianon (1918), historic Transylvania, together with the other Romanian-inhabited lands (Banat, Crisana, and Maramure) an area larger than Hungary itself were assigned to Romania, despite the substantial number of Hungarians who lived there. In 1940, after the forced cession of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, Hungary put its claim to Transylvania and a somewhat reluctant Germany and Italy agreed that Hungary could annex northern Transylvania, which was about two-fifths of the territories lost in 1918 and with a Hungarian majority. Southern Transylvania remained a part of Romania. After Romanias change of alliance in the war in August 1944, Transylvania was rapidly overrun by the Soviet and Romanian armies. However, after the depredations of the newly arriving Romanian administration, the local Soviet commanders established what was a de facto autonomous communist state of Northern Transylvania, under the joint Hungarian-Romanian MADOSZ administration. This was not completed until March 1945, after which Romanian sovereignty over Transylvania was complete. From the Hungarian national standpoint, the significance of Transylvania is that it is regarded as the entity that guaranteed the historic continuity of the Hungarian state and ensured its survival despite the submergence of the Kingdom either through Ottoman or Hapsburg conquest. The loss of Transylvania has been made all the more difficult to assimilate in the light of the continued existence of large numbers of Hungarians there. In this way, an ideological norm Transylvania as the guarantor of the continuity of Hungarian statehood has become fused with a lower-level political problem perceptions of the treatment of the minority. Thus, both Romanian and Hungarian intellectuals, who have historically formulated the nationalist ideologies of their respective nations, are conscious of their separately identified and directly conflicting histories of Transylvania. A mythicized concept of Transylvania, which may have little to do with existing realities, plays a central role in the national consciousness of both nations, most particularly in that it is seen as having safeguarded the survival of the nation in the most critical epoch of its history. Furthermore, the frequently arcane debates about Daco-Roman continuity have had a contemporary importance, in that the right of prior occupation can be used to justify the treatment of the minority or the claim for possession of the province.

10

2.1.1 Nationalities Policy under the Communists

The general principle according to which communist states have treated their national minorities derives from the belief in the primacy of class over nation. In strict terms, the interests of a Hungarian worker were congruent with those of a Romanian worker and any differences between them arising from self-perceptions were merely the result of a false consciousness instilled in the working class by the bourgeoisie. Consequently, communist governments have found it very simple to issue proclamations to end national discrimination and to establish a situation in which life is to be national in form and socialist in content. In other words, according to this Leninist maxim, the language in which a particular set of ideas or concepts was expressed was immaterial, as long as what was expressed was socialist. In the Romanian case, the Leninist maxim was initially interpreted as providing the Hungarian minority with extensive facilities of its own. In the immediate post-war period, for example, a separate Hungarianlanguage university, Bolyai University, was established in Cluj/Klozsvr/Kolozsvr and a Medical Pharmaceutical Faculty in Tirgu Mure/ Marovsrhely. On the other hand, from the outset it was made evident that the Hungarian-language educational network was to teach a Romanian communist culture in Hungarian. As early as 1948, history textbooks were being revised to stress the Romanian over the Hungarian version of the history of Transylvania. In other words, while care was taken to maintain the external facade (national in form), the Romanian authorities were from the outset determined not to permit the continuation of an autonomous Hungarian culture, whether socialist in content or not. This method of dealing with the nationalities, which applied, equally to the Germans and the smaller minorities may therefore be summed up as being based on a claim that the co -inhabiting nationalities enjoyed full rights in all areas of Romanian life. On the other hand, this was interpreted in practice as being Romanian not merely in terms of the state but also in the national culture. On paper, the provision made by the Communist Romanian state for the minorities looked generous and sensible. There was a battery of legislation providing for all manner of minority facilities. Article 17 of the 1965 Constitution states: The citizens of the Socialist Republic of Romania, irrespective of their nationality, race, sex or religion shall have equal rights in all fields of economic, political, juridical, social and cultural life... Any attempt at establishing restrictions [on the rights of minorities], at nationalist-chauvinist propaganda and at a fomentation of racial or national hatred shall be punished by law. To that should be added Article 22: In the Socialist Republic of Romania the co-inhabiting nationalities shall be assured the free use of their mother tongue as well as books, newspapers, periodicals, theatres and education at all levels in their own languages. In territorial-administrative units also inhabited by population of non-Romanian nationality, all the bodies and institutions shall use in speech and in writing the language of the nationality concerned and shall appoint officials from its ranks or from among other citizens who know the language and way of life of the local population. These constitutional provisions were reinforced by a battery of other laws and decrees, governing minority rights on the proportion of deputies elected to the Grand National Assembly (Law 67/1974); administrative organization (Law 2/1968); the operation and organization of local councils (Law 57/1958); the running of state socialist units (Law 11/1971); the Labor Code (Article 2); education (Law 11/1968); the press law (Article 4) and other items of legislation. There was also provision for the use of minority languages in the 11

courts, the publication of the Official Bulletin in Hungarian and similar guarantees in the administration of justice. These formal statements of social policy on the rights of minorities should be regarded as further supplemented by Communist Party documents and by high-level statements from politicians, in the Romanian instance deriving exclusively from the party leader and head of state, Nicolae Ceauescu, who remained in power from 1965 to his violent overthrow at the end of 1989. Our party and state are faced with the duty to take conscientious action to provide every one of our citizens with the sort of conditions under which the nation and the nationalities can fulfill themselves and, at the same time, make it possible for national differences to diminish and gradually to disappear under communism... In any case, the entire panoply of legal rights had to be interpreted against the political doctrine of the leading role of the party, which in practice voided them of direct applicability. Another factor of relevance, which was common to all communist societies, was the existence of internal regulations, usually kept secret, which directly contradicted the formal rights entrenched in the Constitution. In Romania these internal regulations (dispozitii interne) were widely employed in the field of nationalities policy. Immediately after the return of the Romanian administration in northern Transylvania in 1945, a process of re-Romanianization was undertaken. This involved the creation of new Romanian institutions and the elimination or downgrading of Hungarian ones. However, rather more significant for the long term was that the spirit of genuine cooperation which existed during the MADOSZ period was terminated and both the left and the right used the minority question as a focus and as an instrument of political mobilization. This phase ended with the consolidation of power by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej after 1949. Dej moved against the Hungarian Peoples Alliance (Magyar Nepi Szvetseg) and had many of its leaders arrested; this was probably as much a step against an autonomous political organization with genuine grassroots support as an anti-Hungarian, nationalist decision. The culmination of this power struggle was the successful elimination of the Muscovites from the Romanian leadership, among them the Hungarian Vasile Luca (Lszlo Luka in Hungarian). Petru Groza, the Magyarophil Romanian prime minister, whom many Hungarians regarded as a guarantor of their rights, lost his post at around the same time. The widespread use of police terror, the hallmark of the Stalinist period, was deployed as much against the Hungarians as against the Romanians, but the arrests and deportations of large numbers of Hungarian intellectuals was a harder blow for the minority than for the majority, given the difference in their sizes. At the same time, the Romanian government established the Hungarian Autonomous Province (today the counties of Mure/ Maros, Covasna/Kovszna, and Hargita/Harghita), consisting of the Szekler counties, based on the Soviet model of autonomous territorial organization. This move was a good illustration of the two-fold nature of Romanian policy, that of accompanying internal repression with external concessions. In retrospect, the statement made by Dej in January 1953 that the national question had been solved for good in Romania proved to be one of the landmarks in the post-war history of Transylvania. Thereafter, the Romanian authorities used this declaration as a pretext for rejecting any public discussion of the problem on the grounds that to do so would be chauvinism. The facade quality of apparent Romanian concessions was further shown by the act that the Hungarian Autonomous Province was autonomous in name only. Its organization differed in no way from the countrys 16 other provinces and it was never given a statute. On the other hand, its existence was used as a pretext for not opening Hungarian cultural facilities elsewhere, with the result that it acquired the reputation of being a Hungarian ghetto. The Hungarian Peoples Alliance was dissolved and with it there disappeared the last collective institution charged with the protection of Hungarian interests. This had the result in practice that minority rights became enforceable only individually and not collectively, which made them void for all practical purposes. 12

Hungarians were furthermore dismissed from all the important nationwide institutions (the Ministry of Interior, Foreign Ministry, officers corps) except where the facade had to be maintained, e.g. the Politburo or the Central Committee of the Communist Party. However, during this period, the Hungarians were by no means the worst affected among the nationalities. The Serbian minority was expelled en masse from the Banat (Western part of Romania) to the Baragan plain (Southern part of Romania) and was constrained to live in appalling conditions; the Germans were stripped of their property and many were deported to the Soviet Union as prisoners-of-war; and there was a strong anti-Semitic campaign disguised as anti-Zionism. Also, by definition, the Romanian majority of all social classes suffered from the excesses of the Stalinist period, notably the measures taken against the old ruling classes and the dislocation caused by rapid industrialization, further fueled by the terror of the secret police. The Hungarian Autonomous Province was reorganized in 1960 in such a way as to lose its overwhelmingly Hungarian-inhabited territories and the adding of purely Romanian ones. To set the seal on this change it was renamed the Mure-Hungarian Autonomous Province. When the Province was completely abolished eight years later, the authorities initially promised that the entire Szeklerland (including the three Sekler counties: Mure/ Maros, Covasna/Kovszna, and Hargita/Harghita) would be united into a single, strong Hungarian county. In fact, the area was split three ways, with the creation of two weak Hungarian counties (Covasna/Kovszna, and Hargita/Harghita) and a mixed Hungarian-Romanian one (Mure/ Maros, the county examined in this Report). In 1967-68, the publication network was reorganized and several new Hungarian-language newspapers were launched one for each county with a substantial number of Hungarian inhabitants. In 1974, using the paper shortage as a pretext, both Romanian and Hungarian papers were cut in size and circulation; the Romanian papers were later restored to their original size and print, the Hungarian ones were not. The cuts in size were accompanied by reductions in the number of journalists who were not re-employed; and this was followed by stricter control over the content of these papers. Until around 1974, there were reasonably clear guidelines as to what was permitted and what was not. Thereafter, the principle of uncertainty was introduced, articles were permitted or banned in an entirely unpredictable fashion and the result was that the Hungarianlanguage press became completely formalistic and devoid of relevant and interesting content. From the mid-1970s onwards, a growing number of Hungarian intellectuals came to feel that the situation was increasingly less tenable. In particular, they were forced to the conclusion that, whatever the declared or undeclared aim of the Romanian leadership might be, the possibility of leading a Hungarian life in Romania was decreasing. It was this conscious or unconscious conclusion that marked the relations between the Hungarians and the Romanian state, which continued throughout the Ceauescu regime. Hungarian intellectuals, as the intelligentsia of every East European state, took stock of the potential for international action, notably in the framework of the Helsinki Summit Final Act of 1975, which specifically safeguarded nationality rights. Other developments abroad, like the Ohrid seminar on national minorities, and the upsurge of minority action in Western Europe were also influential. Contacts with Hungary no doubt also played a part in persuading members of the minority to put pressure on the Romanian state by gaining publicity in the West. This coincided with the favorable reception of the concept of human rights in the West and with the recognition of samizdat (publications produced informally and often illegally by individuals and organizations outside the official structure) as a legitimate and reliable means of communication. In the Romanian context, Hungarians must also have been aware of the leverage provided by unfavorable publicity for a state that, overtly at any rate, made its independent foreign policy contingent on Western approval. The result of this was an increase in the amount of information about the Hungarian minority in Transylvania and consequent pressure on the Romanian leadership to account for its treatment of the 13

minority. Intellectuals within Romania began to speak out, despite the personal dangers of doing so in the increasingly repressive Romanian state. The Lazar memorandum, the letters of protest by Kroly Kirly and the memorandum by Lajos Takcs all fall into this category. (George Schpflin-Hugh Poulton: Romania Ethnic Hungarians, Minority Rights, Expedite Graphic Limited Murray House, 3 Vandon Street, London, SW1H OAG 1990, and Pages: 8-11)

2.2 Comments related to the language overviews as presented in the First Initial Periodical Report
In Romania the only official language of the state is Romanian (Constitution of Romania, Article 13.), thus Hungarian can be considered a regional or minority language, based on the ECMRL (Part I, Article 1.a/i, and Article B). As mentioned above, the Hungarian language in Romania is mainly used in Transylvania, but even within Transylvania in a differentiated manner, predominantly in Harghita/Hargita, Covasna/Kovszna, Mure/ Maros, Satu Mare/Szatmr, Bihor/Bihar, Cluj/Klozsvr/Kolozs and Zalu/Zilah counties. Given this situation, the existing language policies have to be reshaped in a manner to meet the local realities and cannot be utilized in a standardized approach as it exists in the present. However, our report does not intend to present the actual discrepancies and dissimilarities regarding the use of Hungarian language within the territory of Transylvania. We firmly believe that his differentiation needs to be reflected and taken into account for further analysis with the aim to enhance the ECMRL implementation relating to the Hungarian language. As mentioned above, this Report will mainly focus on the realities of Mure/ Maros County, with a special emphasis on the county capital, Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. Taken into consideration the figures and statistics in relation to the minority and regional languages (mentioned above) existing in Romania, we are welcoming the openness and willingness of the country in its efforts to preserve the cultures and languages spoken on the territory of the country. Romania ratified a number of articles from Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, including the following languages: Albanian, Armenian, Greek, Italian, Yiddish, Macedonian, Polish, Romani, Ruthenian, and Tatar. (Please check the languages listed with italic fonts in the table below) Based on the 2002 Romanian census figures listed below, these languages are spoken by a relatively small amount of people. The table on the next page was copied from the official web page of the Romanian Census: http://www.recensamant.ro/.

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ROMANIA TOTAL POPULATION Romanian Hungarian Romani/Romanes German Ukrainian Serbian Turkish Tatar Slovak Yiddish Russian Bulgarian Czech Croatian Greek Polish Armenian Slovenian Ruthenian Carasovenian Italian Chinese Albanian Gagauzian Macedonian Other mother tongues Undeclared

Number of Speakers Percentage of total population 21,698,181 100 19,741,356 1,447,544 241,617 45,129 57,593 20,377 28,714 21,482 16,108 1,100 29,890 6,747 3,339 6,355 4,146 2,755 762 71 169 269 2,563 2300 484 30 588 11,348 5,345 91 6.7 1.1 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 * 0.1 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 0.1 *

Table 1: Languages spoken in Romanian

We read and analyzed the presentations of the above-mentioned languages included in the First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania in Romania (Country Report) and we can declare that the preservation of these languages as well as the support of the country given to these ethnic groups in their attempt to safeguard their culture is quite remarkable. We analyzed the general presentation written to each language, which includes in some cases a short summary of the history of the particular ethnic group as well as the alterations that occurred during history in relation to the specific language spoken by that ethnicity. We can state that these presentations are well balanced. In the majority of the cases, the presentations include higher figures, which are commented on by the authors of the Country Report, the figures registered during the 2002 census are not representing the real amount of that specific minority community (Albanians, Italians, Macedonians, Italians, Ruthenians, Greeks, etc.). In addition to the unofficial figures, the introductions include the history of certain ethnic groups underlining the evidence that the ethnic group presented was much larger throughout the history: Currently the number of Romanian citizens of Albanian ethnicity is estimated unofficially at over 4,000, this figure increasing from several hundred registered after 15

the 1989 Revolution. It should be noted that in 1944 there were identified around 20,000 Albanians in Romania. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania in Romania, Page 24) If in 1930, 15,544 Armenians were living in Romania, the census of 2002 indicated 1,780 Armenians. National statistics of the Armenian Union put forward a number of approx. 7,000 people, including those whose origin is not 100 per cent Armenian but who declare themselves as being Armenians. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Page 27.) The number of the Greek community has experienced significant fluctuations: after growing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in 1930 there were 26,495 people, 3940 to 1992, then 6,513 in 2002. Unofficial sources currently indicate a number of approx. 14,000 people. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Page 32.) Of the 3,288 Italians officially registered in the 2002 census, 2,420 know Italian, i.e. a rate of 73.6 per cent. In addition to these individuals, a total of 111 people of ethnicity other than Italian declared Italian as their native language. According to unofficial statistics from the Association of Italians in Romania RO.AS.IT, the number of community members would be 30,000 to 40,000, more than half of them Italian speakers. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Page 39.) The provisions of Part III of the ECMRL were ratified and applied in Romania, for the following languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Croat, German, Hungarian, Russian, Serb, Slovak, Turkish, and Ukrainian (please check bold names in the table above). The percentage of the population speaking these languages is marked in bold in the table above. After analyzing the Country Report, we can state that the general presentations of the above-mentioned ethnic groups as well as their mother tongues (Part III) are impartial with two exceptions, that of the Hungarian language and the Roma community. We found discrepancies in the presentation of the Roma community as well as the Romani language, but given the parameters of this Report, we do not intend to make a deep analysis of the Romani language as presented in the Country Report. The presentation of the Hungarian language does not include any data related to the history of the Hungarian community although it is considered the largest minority in Romania, spoken by 6.6 per cent of the total population of the country. Other languages spoken by a large number of persons are Romani (Part II of the ECMRL, spoken by 1.1 per cent of population), Ukrainian (spoken by 0.3 per cent of total population) and German spoken by 0.2 per cent of the countrys total population. The history of these communities is shortly presented in the Country Report. Parallel to the missing historical facts related to the Hungarian community, the history of the Romani, Ukrainian, as well as German, communities are presented in the Report. The other languages included in Part III are being used by less then 0.2 per cent of the total population, nevertheless their history is worth being presented in the Country Report. We are aware these arguments are not considered to be the main features of a Shadow Report, nevertheless we mention these symbolic omissions as well as illustrations of the Hungarian community and its mother tongue as in the last couple of years, while working in this region, we often dealt with an attitude that we consider being the motive that lies behind these symbolic presentations. Besides the non-existing historical data, the presentation of the Hungarian community speaking the Hungarian language, is the only one in the entire Country Report that is presented as being in a constant decline, the word decrease is used six times within the introduction (and even more in the following chapters) yet the same word can not be found in any of the other presentations or descriptions within the 16

Report. It is important to note that Romania is facing a general population decline due to several reasons that are not the issue of the present Report. "Looking back over time, one can find that during the period 19771992, the population registered an increase of about one million persons while the period 1992-2002 can be characterized by a decrease with a same number of approximately one million persons, thus in the year 2002 we may have a population numerically equal to the 1977 population," said National Statistical Institute (INS) President Aurel Camara in a press conference (INS press release 2003). Parallel to the general population decline affecting each of the countrys communities, it is important and sad to note that the German population has massively emigrated (to Germany) during and after the Ceauescu Regime, as a result their number has dropped between 1992 (119,436) and 2002 (59,764). (Minority Rights Group). Our conclusions related to the vocabulary as well to the character of the Hungarian languages presentation are a result of a very basic analysis, using the most basic search function of Microsoft Office (Ctrl F), searching for the word: decrease within the entire report. After doing this nonscientific investigation we found that the word decrease is used solely in the case of the Hun garian language throughout the whole report. We do not intend to enter into very deep and scientific conclusions, however we would like to mention that we consider that general introduction as well as the data presentation related to the Hungarian language is characterized by a vocabulary considered by us unequal and to some extent subjective, in comparison with the presentation of the other languages listed in the Country Report e.g. the German Language, Bulgarian language and the other languages (Part III). More than 850 years ago, the first Germans settled down on the territory of Romania. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Page 130.) The number of those who declare themselves Hungarian, based on the 2002 census, is 1,434,377 individuals, representing 6.6 per cent of the total population, being in decline in comparison with the figures of the previous census by 190.600 individuals. Hungarians live in the urban area, their number decreasing compared to 1992 with 17.1 per cent, while the decrease of the Hungarians in the rural area was of only 4.9 per cent. The population has decreased as compared with 1992, when the Hungarian population in Covasna was of 75.2 per cent, for example, being in decrease with 11.7 per cent. (First Initial Periodical Report on the Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Romania, Page 153.)

2.3 Comments on Article 6 as presented in the First Periodical Report

The Country Report states in Chapter 7, entitled Measures taken to make better known the rights and duties deriving from the application of the Charter, that several events were organized with the aim or raising awareness and publicizing the ratification and the content of the ECMRL. Additionally, a trilingual (Romanian, Hungarian, and English) official booklet was produced containing the text of the Charter. Given the complexity of the Charter, as well as the existing misunderstanding (reflected in the present Report), especially in relation to the use of the Hungarian language within state institutions, we believe the measures taken by the Romanian state were insufficient on the scale of the entire country. Given the relatively high number of languages included in the ratification of the Charter and the regional character of these languages, it would have been more efficient to concentrate on the implementation of regional events, focused on the specific issues (languages spoken) related to the Region. In the Region where we conducted our monitoring and investigations, we can declare that the majority of state institutions are unfamiliar with the content of the ECMRL and the general public has very limited information about it. 17

We did not register any type of real adjustment within the operation and general communication of the local state institutions. More than that, on several occasions, we met with representatives of state institutions who completely ignored the existing language policies (starting from 2001, in the field of public administration), declaring when questioned about the absence of Hungarian language that these provisions are not valid for their institutions. (Please read the research and the case studies presented below). All these long-existing misinterpretations could have been better cleared up with Regional Campaigns financed by the Department of Interethnic Relations or other state authority responsible for the facilitation of the ECMRL implementation. In addition, we want to add that the measures enlisted in the First Periodical Report are not quite precise about the extent of how the state institutions were implied in these events or if there has been any type of attendance on their part (e.g. central and local authorities). Moreover, we could not ascertain if any type of implementation strategy was designed and developed aimed at a well-organized completion of the obligations by Romania, after the ratification of the ECMRL. We are not sure which ministries are in charge (if any) of informing the local and county authorities on the existence of the ECMRLs provisions and their immediate implementation given the fact that the ratification explicitly involves all the Central Ministries and their local branches, as well as local and county establishments. One of the main problems encountered during our monitoring work was the lack of responsibility found at the level of the state institutions representatives in relation to the use of Hungarian language during their official communication. Although the general legal provisions are offering the possibility to use the Hungarian language, there are not any clear guidelines established at the central level (meaning on ministerial level), given the fact that many of the institutions have a central organ such as the Ministry of Education in the case of school representatives; Ministry of Internal Affairs in the case of majority of local self governments, mayors offices; Ministry of Justice in the case of courts; etc. (Please read Part 3 of the present Report: Presentation of the Romanian Administration System.) As a result, we would like to recommend the following: o The design and preparation of a clear and well-defined strategy aimed at the efficient implementation of the Charters provisions with a special emphasis on state institutions responsibilities, including the possible allocation of human and financial resources where needed. o Implementation of Regional campaigns to raise awareness on the implementation of the ECMR Ls provisions. The target groups should be first of all the representatives of the state institutions as well as the general public.

2.4 The site of our study: Mure/ Maros County

This part of the Report will focus on the presentation of Mure/ Maros County, highlighting the use of the Hungarian language from the perspective of the actual domestic and international legislation in use, including a brief description of the Hungarian minority living in the county. Our Report is based on the Official Romanian Census Data of 2002 related to the ethnic composition of different settlements in Mure/ Maros County, includes the monitoring of the ECMRL implementation within 39 local self- governments, 40 public authorities and 30 schools in Mure/ Maros County. The diagrams below show the cohabitation of the diverse ethnic communities throughout the last five decades within Mure/ Maros County, including the town of Trgu Mure / Marosvsrhely. The diagrams are built on Official Romanian Census Data from 1941 until 2002.

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Figure 2. Ethnic Composition of Mure/Maros County between 19412002

60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 1941 1956 1966 Year 1977 1992 2002 Romanian Hungarian German Roma

Figure 3. Ethnic Composition of Trgu Mure/Marosvsrhely

b e tw e e n 1 9 4 1 -2 0 0 2

100.00% 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 1941 1956 1966 Year 1977 1992 2002 Romanian Hungarian German Roma

Table 2: Ethnic Composition of Mure/ Maros County

Currently, the ethnic composition of the county is: Romanian Hungarian Roma Other Nationalities Total 309,375 228,275 40,425 2,776 580,851 53.25% 39.30% 6.95% 0.50%* 100%

Official Romanian Census Data, 2002 *Note: The category of Other Nationalities includes Ukrainians, Germans, Turks, Russians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Slovenian, Greeks, Jews and Italians.

Additionally, you can see a map on the next page that shows the presence of the Hungarian minority in the county. 19

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The primary location of our study is Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. The town is situated in the central part of Transylvania region and is inhabited by Romanians and Hungarians in almost equal numbers: 50 per cent Romanian, 47 per cent Hungarian, respectively Roma 2 per cent, with 1 per cent other nationalities (Official Census Data 2002). Table 3: Ethnic Composition of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely Romanian Hungarian Roma Other Nationalities Total 75,533 70,108 3,660 740 150,041 50 per cent 47 per cent 2.5 per cent 0.5 per cent* 100 per cent

Official Romanian Census Data, 2002 *Note: The category of Other Nationalities includes Ukrainians, Germans, Turks, Russians, Serbians, Slovenian, Greeks, Jews and Italians

Bulgarians,

We would like to begin with the presentation and analysis of a partial linguistic landscape (LL) survey carried out in the central part of the town, where the majority of the state institutions operate their offices and are visited by a large number of the public on a daily basis. We want to emphasis that the present LL does not include schools and other educational establishments given that the monitoring and analysis of the educational institutions are made in Part 4 of this Report. The reason for conducting this LL survey was to verify how the actual minority language policies regarding the inscriptions of the state institutions and the street names are reflected within the towns most visited area. When conducting our LL survey we took into consideration the different methodical approaches related to it and we worked with the Landry and Bourhis LL definition: The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government building combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region or urban agglomeration. (Landry and Bourhis, 1997:5.) We took photographs of 22 state institutions names, as well as street names. As a result of this LL analysis of the downtown area of the city, we can confirm that public signs are predominantly monolingual, only 6 out of 22 signs are bilingual. While the state institutions operating under the jurisdiction of the local and county authorities tend to have bilingual inscriptions, representatives of central organs have monolingual Romanian inscriptions only, often decorated with the Romanian flag (see also Ben and Pntek in Ndor and Szarka, 2003).

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Some monolingual Romanian public signs:

1. One-way street 2. Romanian National Bank

3. Cult of Heroes. Mure/ Maros County Association 4. National Association of War Veterans, Mure/ Maros Branch 5. Ministry of National Defense, Military Circle

6. Community Police Forces, Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely

7.

Chamber of Commerce

8. Direction sign in Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely

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Bilingual public signs are less frequent in Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely:

9. Post office 10. Wedding-hall

11.

Mayors office

12. Palace of Culture

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2.4.1 Bilingual street names

Language predominance is accommodated and practiced in this part of Romania. Language predominance allows the use of Hungarian language in certain public institutions and places, but still speakers of the dominant language can function without restrictions in all public institutions and places in all localities of the state, while speakers of other languages are expected to learn the language of the dominant group in order to function fully in the same settings. (Cserg 2007:118.) The Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on the Protection of the National Minorities (FCNM) composed a recommendation in 2005, in relation to Article 11 of the Convention, Use of minority languages to indicate place names, saying, The authorities should pursue their efforts to ensure the effective implementation of Section 90 (4) of the Law on Local public administration, making additional efforts to examine, in consultation with those concerned, the existing needs in this field. (Source: Opinion 134, Article 11.) It is important to add that the official street names signs should be bilingual since the introduction of the minority language provisions to the Law of Local public administration nr.215 in 2001. In spite of the long-existing legislation, the street names are monolingual except for the word street, which is translated into Hungarian. Even though the Local Council adopted Decision nr. 371 on 25 October, 2007 (Attachment nr. 1) regarding the official translation of Romanian street names into Hungarian (given the provisions of the Law of Local public administration nr. 215 in 2001, we consider this decision unnecessary) the street signs remained monolingual. More than that, translating only the word street includes a very negative connotation and message toward both the Hungarian and Romanian communities. In the period prior to 1990, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s, the street names signs were bilingual. There are still two or three signs left from that time; they have somehow remained in the public sphere of the town (outside of the downtown area) and appear to have been accidentally overlooked by the local authorities despite the positive political changes as well as the numerous legal provisions protecting the language rights of the ethnic minorities.
14/ 15. Official street name signs in Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, the name of the streets are in Romanian while the word street is bilingual. The correct version of the first sign would be: str. Justitiei (RO) - Brsg utca (HU). The second street name in bilingual format would be Bujorului (RO) Bazsarzsa utca (HU).

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16. Bilingual street name sign before 1990.

17. The same street name sign modified into monolingual.

18. Bilingual street name sign before 1990.

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Further monolingual pictures:

19. Court Building Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely

20. Attention! Car will be blocked/ booted.

22. Different local state institutions related to health issues. 21. National Statistics Institute

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3 Administrative Authorities and public services

3.1 Presentation of the Romanian Administration System
This Report analyzes the main features of the minority language policy in Romania, and the eventual discrepancies between existing language policies and their implementation. This chapter focuses on the use of Hungarian language in administrative authorities and public services that are working in Mure/ Maros County, irrespective of if they are subordinated to state ministers or if they belong to local or to county councils, given that the use of minority and/or regional languages by the state institutions, regardless of their local or regional and central character, is stipulated in the below-presented legislation (e.g. several articles of the Constitution of Romania), different chapters of the domestic legislative acts, and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Due to territorial and administrative reasons, Romania is divided into 41 counties and the capital city of Bucharest. Each county is governed by an elected county council. Local councils and elected mayors are the public administration authorities in villages and towns. The county council is the public administration authority that coordinates the activities of all village and town councils in a respective county. The central government appoints a prefect for each county and Bucharest municipality. The prefect is the representative of the government at the local level and directs any public services of the ministries and other central agencies (called de-concentrated institutions) at the county level. Under legislation in force since January 1999, local councils have control over the spending of their allocations from the central government budget as well as authority to raise additional revenue locally. Central government-appointed prefects formerly significant authority over the budget is limited to a review of expenditures to ascertain their constitutionality. (DESA, UN 2003.) In order to exercise its duties, the government has at its disposal an apparatus composed of the General Secretariat and departments with specific attributions. Subordinated to the government administration are: Ministries, as specialized central public administration institutions. Various structures are subordinated to the ministries, e.g. agencies and authorities; Specialized public administration institutions with connected activities; De-concentrated public services, at the county level; Autonomous bodies, national companies, public institutions which offer public services, but are not part of the central public administration; and Other specialized institutions of the central public administration, such as the agencies.

The public authorities at the local level have the following structure: 27

Elected local councils and mayors chosen at community/city level. They function as autonomous administrative authorities and they have attributions directed at solving the problems in the communes or cities. [] District councils at the county level. These councils coordinate the activities of the communal and city councils, with a view to running public services at district level.

The prefecture institution ensures the connection between the central and the local levels. The holder of this position was initially politically named, ensuring the role of government representation in the territory. After some years, the prefect was supposed to be politically independent. Since 2009, the prefect is again named politically. The prefect runs the deconcentrated services. There are no subordination reports between prefects and mayors, city councils, district councils and their respective presidents. (Androniceanu and Bogdan, 2009.)

3.2 Legal Background

In this subchapter we will present the legal background for the use of the Hungarian language within the public administration system. It is important to present different laws that guarantee the use of Hungarian in administrative authorities and public services. In this respect it is of vital importance the Constitution of Romania, Article 120, and Paragraph 2: In those administrative-territorial units in which the number of citizens belonging to national minorities have a significant weight, the use of that national minority language is ensured both in written and in oral relations with the local government authorities and with the decentralized public services; as per the conditions provided by the organic law. De-concentrated/de-centralized institutions belong to certain ministries but are active and carry out their work in Mure/ Maros County. This Article of the Constitution is stipulated by the Decision Number: 1206, from 27 November 2001, regarding the Law of Local public administration no. 215/2001, Paragraph 19, Article 2, that states: Authorities of public and local administrations, public institutions subordinated to them as well as decentralized public services, ensure the use of mother tongue in their relationships with national minorities, in those administrative-territorial units in which the percentage of citizens belonging to national minorities are over 20 per cent; all according to the Constitution, the present law and the international treaties to which Romania is party. The designated responsible state functionaries for the implementation of the above presented legislation are the mayors, presidents of county councils, leaders of public institutions

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subordinated to their local public administrative authorities and leaders of decentralized public services. Article 2, paragraph (2) and Article 8, paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) from the Government Decree no. 1206/2001 states that: Citizens belonging to national minorities have the right to address the local public administrative authorities and the appropriate offices of the local and county councils in their mother tongue both orally and in writing, and have the right to be answered both in Romanian and in their mother tongue. In relations with local public administrative authorities, citizens that belong to a certain national minority, and form more than 20 per cent in a territorial-administrative district, have the right to let be known in mother tongue, the agenda of local or county council meetings, and the decisions accepted by these as well. Those Romanian citizens who belong to the Hungarian minority have the right to be informed in their mother tongue about the agenda of city or county council meetings as well about the normative and individual decisions adopted by these councils. Clause 39 of Law of Local public administration no. 215/2001, Paragraph 7 states: In those communities or cities where residents belonging to a certain national minority form more than 20 per cent of residents, the agenda is to be announced to the public also in the mother tongue of those citizens that belong to this minority. The right to use mother tongue in meetings of the local council or county council is guaranteed, in case if council members belong to a certain national minority and form at least a third of the council. Article 42, Paragraph 1 and 2 of the public administration Law number: 215/2001 states: Meetings of the local council are open to the public. Proceedings of the council are in the Romanian language. In those councils where local council members belonging to a national minority form at least a fifth of the total of the council, their mother tongue can be used also. In such cases the mayor will assure that translation will take place to Romanian Language as well. In all cases, the documents of the council meetings are composed in Romanian Language. Individuals belonging to the Hungarian minority are granted the right to use their mother tongue alongside the Romanian language during official ceremonies organized by the local public administrative authorities. (Article 9, paragraph (1) of GD no. 1206/2001) If this is not implemented in reality, the mayor of the respective settlement can be held responsible. They also have the right to inscribe in their mother tongue as well as in Romanian language, the names of public institutions that are under the authority of local public administrative authorities as well as to display advertisements of public interest in Romanian and in their mother tongue.

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"Art 4. Paragraph (2), GD nr. 1206/2001 states: In those territorial-administrative units where the percentage of citizens belonging to national minorities are over 20 per cent, the local public administration authorities will ensure the inscription of the names of public institutions from under their authority in the maternal language also, of the citizens belonging to the respective national minorities, as well as displaying of advertisements of public interest; all as prescribed by the law. " Romania has ratified the ECRML, Article 10, paragraphs 1aii, iii, iv, v, b, c; 2b, c, d, e, f, g; 3a, b, c; 4b, c; and 5. In the following section we will start to analyze the implementation of the ECRML, Article 10 as well as the implementation of regulations presented in the Romanian legislation.

3.3 Research and Results

Our organization, the Civic Engagement Movement (CEMO) held several investigations as well as intentionally initiated some cases related to the use of Hungarian language within the public institutions (e.g. the mayors office and other state institutions). We sent out a questionnaire (Attachment nr. 2) to the mayors offices where the Hungarian population exceeds 20 per cent, as well as different letters to numerous public institutions with the aim to verify the response of the institutions related to the use of the Hungarian language and to test the level of awareness connected to the provisions of the ECMRL and to the general understanding of the language policies.

3.3.1 Correspondence with the authorities

Our correspondence with the state institutions was carried out continuously, the mails in the case of certain institutions contained the same questions, and in other cases the topics and issues were modified. One of the main characteristics of the mails were the use of language given the fact that CEMO wrote the letters solely in Hungarian following the requirements of the actual language policies including the provisions of the ECMRL. In the first set of letters we inquired about the number of total employees and the ethnic composition of the personnel. We sent queries to 76 public institutions, namely local and regional (in the meaning that they belong to certain ministry but are active in Mure/ Maros County, called thus a de-concentrated institution) as well as public service providing institutions. Given that the percentage of Hungarian inhabitants in Mure/ Maros County is 39.3 per cent in the county capital (Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely) the ethnic composition is 47 per cent (thus, both figures are far above the 20 per cent requested by the law), we requested answers in the Hungarian language, according to the Constitution of Romania, Article 120, Paragraph 2, the Law of Local public administration no. 215/2001, as well as the ECRML, Article 10. Out of 76 local and regional and public service providing institutions 19 (25 per cent) answered our request sending their letters both in Romanian and Hungarian, according to the actual legislation 13 (17 per cent) local and regional as well as public service providing institution sent their responses exclusively in the Romanian language, while 11 (14 per cent) institutions did not answer, explaining that the letter was formulated in a language other than the states official

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language (e.g. Romanian language). The number of those institutions that did not reply at all is 33 (44 per cent).

The following institutions refused to communicate the requested public information, based on the fact that the request sent by CEMO was formulated in the Hungarian language: 1. Romanian Post, National Company (Compania Naionala Pota Romn S.A public service providing institution) 2. Electrica (Electrica S.A, electricity company) public service providing institution) (Attachment number 3)

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Electrica Distribution Transilvania South Public Company Mures branch Public Relations and Communication Dept. Registered as: 727/3065/18-March-2009 For CEMO / Civil Engagement Movement Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, Deva str.3. 540430, Mures County With reference to your letter, registered at S.D.E.E. Mures with no.727/2296/26February-2009 In order to answer your request, we ask you to address our company in the Romanian Language, the official language of the state. With respect, engineer Ovidiu GEORGESCU Laura URCAN CEO Public Relations and Communication Dept.
3. National Road and Highway Company (Compania Naional de Autostrazi si Drumuri

Nationale. It could be classified as regional institution, in the meaning that belongs to a certain Ministry although is active in Mure/ Maros County, this called a deconcentrated institution). Attachment number 4.
National Road and Highway Company, Romania Bucharest, 010873, 1, Dinicu Golescu Bulevard, nr. 38 C.U.I.: 16054368, N.R.C. :J40/552/ 15 01 2004, Social Capital : 16.370.220 RON Regional Directive for Roads and Bridges Brasov 500090, Mihail Koglniceanu Bulevard, nr. 13, C2/1, OP 7, CP 800 Tel: 0268/ 321.623/ 321.995/ 321.813/ 320.901 Fax: 0268/ 322.526/ 472.304/ 322.541 For: Civic Engagement Movement To answer your request, formulated without number and registered in S.D.N.T Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, 806/24.02.2009 we ask you to formulate your request according to Article 13 of the Constitution of Romania. Director Engineer Moldovan Ioan

The Article mentioned in the letter above (e.g. Article 13 of the Constitution of Romania) states that [i]n Romania the official language of the state is Romanian.

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4. National Archives, Mure County Sub-office (Direcia Judeean Mure a Arhivelor Naionale. This could be classified as a regional institution, in the meaning that it belongs to a certain ministry but is active in Mure/ Maros county, thus called a de-concentrated institution). 5. Office for Mobilization of the Economy and Preparation for Defense of the Territory, Mure County Military Center (Oficiul de Mobilizare a Economiei i pregtirea Teritoriului pentru Aprare, Centrului Militar Judeean Mure. It could be classified as a regional institution, in the meaning that belongs to certain Ministry but is active in Mure/ Maros county, called thus de-concentrated institution). Attachment number 5. Romania National Defense Ministry Mures County Military Center 27-February-2009 Nr. A -456 Tirgu Mures For CEMO / Civic Engagement Movement For Mr. Horvath Kovacs Adam In reply to your letter, we inform you that the information that you have requested is considered classified and cannot be communicated, according to Law no. 182/2002, titled the Law of Classified Information, and according to Governmental Resolution no. 585/2002, regarding national protection standards of classified information in Romania. In the future, if you would like to send mails to the Mures County Military Center, please compose your letter in the Romanian Language, conforming to the 13th Clause, Constitution of Romania, revised by Law no. 429 dated 18 September 2003. With respect, Commander of Mures County Military Center Lieutenant, Ispas TODEA 6. Communitary Public Service for Emmission and Registraton of Passports (Serviciul Public Comunitar pentru Eliberarea i Evidena Paaporatelor. It could be classified as a regional institution, in the meaning that it belongs to a certain ministry but is active in Mure/ Maros County, thus called a de-concentrated institution). 7. Mure County School Inspectorate (Inspectoratul colar Judeean Mure. It could be categorized as a regional institution, in the meaning that belongs to the ministry of Education, Research and Innovation but is active in Mure/ Maros County, thus called a de-concentrated institution.) Attachment number 6. The Mure County School Inspectorate sent back our original letter. On the letter written by us in Hungarian, there was a remark written in Romanian with ball pen: Resend to be composed in Romanian. (The scanned version of this document will be attached to the Report.) NOT SECRET 1st issue SE 1131

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8. Communitary Public Service for Emmission of Driving License (Serviciul Public Comunitar Regim Permise de Conducere- it could be categorized as regional institution, in the meaning that belongs to certain Ministry but is active Mure/ Maros County, thus called a de-concentrated institution.) 9. Territorial Service Anticorruption Mure (Serviciul Teritorial Anticorupie Mure ) it could be categorized as regional institution, in the meaning that belongs to certain Ministry but is active in Mure/ Maros county, thus called a de-concentrated institution.) 10. Immigration Service of Mure County (Serviciul Pentru Imigrri al Judeului Mure could be categorized as a regional institution, in the meaning that it belongs to the Ministry of Internal Affairs/ Romanian Office of Immigration but is active in Mure/ Maros County, thus called a de-concentrated institution.) Attachment number 7.

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Home and Administration Ministry Romanian Office of Immigration Unique Issue

NOT SECRET

Immigration Service of Mures County Personal Data Operator 6052 Nr.3227551 Tirgu .Mures, 20 March 2009 For Civic Engagement Movement Following your request dated 20 February 2009, registered at the Romanian Office of Immigration Immigration Service of Mures County with nr. 3227551/26 February 2009, referring to providing information of public interest conforming to Law nr. 544/2001, with its later modifications and completions, we inform you of the following: Conforming to the 13th Clause of Constitution: In Romania, the official language is the Romanian Language." The right of Romanian Citizens belonging to National Minorities to use their native tongue in their communication with Public Administration Authorities and with Local Public Services is stipulated by 120th Clause, 2nd paragraph of the Constitution: In those administrative territorial units where citizens belonging to a certain national minority form a significant part, the use of their national language in written and oral communications with Local Public Administrative Authorities and with Local Public Services, as ensured by the organic law. Similarly, conforming to the 19th Clause of Law of Public Local Administration nr. 215/2001, "In those administrative territorial units where citizens belonging to national minorities form a share of over 20 per cent of total residents, Local public administration Authorities, and its subordinate Public Institutions, as well as Local Public Services, ensure the use of mother tongue, in its relationships, conforming to the Constitution, to this Law, and to International Treaties Romania is part of," confirmed by the 8th Clause, 2nd Paragraph of Government Resolution nr. 1206/2001 about Application Standards regarding rights of citizens belonging to a certain national minority to use their native tongue in Local public administration, Law nr. 215/2001, as follows: "Local public administration Authorities and its own specialty staff have the duty to reply for solicitations in the Romanian Language as well as in the mother tongue. It is compulsory to prepare official documents in the Romanian Language." We inform you in the same time, that conforming with the 1st Clause, 1st Paragraph of Urgency Order nr. 55/2007 related to the founding of Romanian Office of Immigration, by reorganizing the Romanian Authority Office for Foreigners and Refugees, as well as, by modification and completion of other normative documents, the Romanian Office of Immigration is a specialty body of the central public administration, a legal entity subordinate of the Home and Administration Ministry. As a result, you can address the Romanian Office of Immigration in the Romanian Language, conforming to the legal provisions mentioned above. With regards, SUCIU Vasile Service Chief, 11. Institution of PREFECT Mure County (Institutiei Prefectului Judetul Mure, it could be Police Inspector categorized as regional institution, in the meaning that it belongs to the Ministry of Administration but is active in Mure/ Maros County, thus called a de-concentrated institution.):

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MINISTRY OF ADMINISTRATION AND OF INTERIOR Institution of the Mures County Prefect Nr. 3.287/3.378/55.004DVII26.02.2009 Dos. 31 Unclassified For the, Civic Engagement Movement Targu Mures, Deva Street nr. 3 To the attention of Mr. President Horvath-Kovacs Adam Following your solicitation addressed to our institution under the Legislation nr. 544/2001, and registered under the above number, we would like to communicate the following to you: Regarding its specific attributes, the Institution of the Mures County Prefect has two employee categories in its organizational structure: those with responsibilities in the public administration, and those with attributions in the field of public order and of national safety. Regarding public administration on the date of 25.02.2009, the situation you requested, presents itself as: Number of employees: 62 Number of Hungarian employees: 6 Functions of the employees of Hungarian nationality: Vice-prefect - 1, Consultants - 2, Legal Advisor - 1 Secretary - 1, Vehicle driver 1. Regarding the information of structures and personnel of the domains of public order and national security, they are exempted from being publicly available to the citizens, according to the complemented and completed provisions of the Legislation nr. 544/2001, Article 12 alignment (1) point a). Similarly, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that according to the re-published Legislation 215/2001, Article 3 alignment (2), the Institution of the Mures County Prefect constitutes part of the category of local public administration authorities. In regards to the question about Hungarian language, see Article 19, letter m) of Legislation 340/2004. Prefect Marius Pascani Vice-prefect Zamfira Pora Directorate of Finance and Accounting, Human and Administrative Resources RO-540026 Tirgu-Mures, Piata Victoriei nr. 1 tel: 0265-269201 Fax: 0265-260380 e-mail: economic@prefecturamures.ro The above letter was written in Romanian (although CEMO requested the answer in Hungarian) and the explanation of the prefects office is in contradiction with the Law nr. 430/2004, The Prefect and the Prefect Institution, Article 19 paragraph 1. m), republished: The prefect, representing the government, in the public relations of decentralized public services in the administrative territorial units with citizens belonging to a national minority in which they have a weight of over 20 per cent, ensures, under the law, the use of the minority language. Based on our research, we consider that the communication in Hungarian with administrative authorities and public services only partially functions and only in case of certain institutions. 36

This can be the consequence of the missing legal and procedural stipulations regarding the implementation of the ECMRLs provisions. Given the fact that the implementation of the ECMRL was not followed by a general revision and readjustment of the existing legislation there is an overall confusion in relation to the use of regional and minority languages especially at the level of institutions that are local representations of the central level ministries or other government agencies (de-concentrated institutions). The operation of these institutions was not thoroughly modified taking into consideration the newly adopted language policies; therefore the misinterpretations registered from the representatives of these institutions are mainly the result of the missing central guidelines that would regulate these legal provisions. The creation of these regulations is a necessity given that these institutions are not empowered to create their own rules of conduct taking into consideration the local characteristics. An additional motive that could lead to the inappropriate implementation of the language policies can be found in the lack of human resources, more precisely, the low number of Hungarian employees. Based on our surveys, the ethnic composition of the state institutions operating in the county capital, Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, that answered our letters formulated in Hungarian is following: the total number of employees is 1,905; Romanians account for a total of 1,625 persons (85.3 per cent of the total employees) meanwhile the Hungarian staff numbers a total of 280 persons (14.7 per cent of the overall number of personnel). Related to institutions, administrative authorities and public services that belong to local administration functioning in the county capital, the situation is similar. In the case of 10 institutions with a total of 3,503 employees, 2,587 are Romanian (73.85 per cent) while 916 (26.15 per cent) are of Hungarian ethnicity. Totally, in those 32 state institutions and public services that answered to our letters, the ethnic composition of the employees is follows: 4,741 (73.62 per cent) are Romanian and 1,699 (26.38 per cent) are Hungarian. We have not received any data related to the positions fulfilled either by the Romanian or by the Hungarian staff. In case of a well-defined mechanism developed for the implementation of a bilingual procedure, the above-mentioned low number of Hungarian employees could handle the Hungarian forms to a certain extent, if they would be hired in strategic positions, such as translators or other positions supporting the bilingual system. Given the lack of procedures related to the bilingual operation and the missing data connected to the positions we think that a large influx of Hungarian documents could create serious problems within the state institutions. Moreover, we must draw the attention to the fact that if someone belongs to the Hungarian minority, this does not necessarily automatically imply that s/he possesses knowledge of the Hungarian terminology in certain areas of expertise given the long-lasting period of monolingual administration. Additionally, these persons are not authorized to answer (in writing) in Hungarian, due to the above-mentioned lack of clear guidelines regarding the use of the Hungarian language. Several Hungarian functionaries explicitly declared during our interviews that they do not know the Hungarian terminology unique to their specialty (e.g. law, economics, and administration). However, it seems that state institutions perceive that if someone speaks both Romanian and Hungarian s/he is capable of providing different professional translations. As a result, institutions do not have to hire professional translators who could appropriately translate Hungarian texts into Romanian and vice versa. Besides the surveys regarding ethnic composition, we sent several inquiries related to the language of the registered documents. As a 37

result of these surveys we can clearly state there is a small number of documents that are formulated in Hungarian. The general perception of the citizens is that it is much more likely that their case will be successfully handled if their request, inquiry or any other official document is written in the official language of the country. The below letter was written to us by the county prefect:
To Civic Engagement Movement, Following your request made to the Institution of the Prefect of Mures County, we communicate to you the following: According to the regulations in force at our institution, we do not have separate accounts organized for the filing of such documents to which you refer. However, we would like to point out that there are such conditions and they are in existence to ensure compliance with the legal provisions on minority rights. Under the rules for the function of the Institution of the Prefect there are no such functions provided as those that you mention, such as authorized interpreter or translator, but personnel exist who can perform such activities quite well. Prefect Marius Pascani

Given that prefects office employs six Hungarian staff members out of a total number of employees 62, there could be procedural problems in case of a big influx of Hungarian letters or inquiries. The translations from Hungarian to Romanian or from Romanian to Hungarian are made by our institutions employees; in special cases we also do employ professional interpreters. We have to mention that our institution is employing 28 people, whose mother tongue is Hungarian, which ones are doing between others the necessary translations. (Mures County Council.) The situation at the county council level is slightly different although the administrative procedures are not clearly defined in regard to the use of the Hungarian language.

3.3.2 Bilingual official documents

In relation to the official documents that are used in the functioning of state institutions, it is important to note that at present, these documents are monolingual. In 2008, the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities (ISPMN) launched a project called Ugyintezo 1 (Hungarian for Clerk, number: 1). The aim of the project was to create and introduce bilingual official forms that will be used within the mayors offices, county councils as well as the child protection system. As a continuation of the project, a new project was launched entitled Clerk, number: 2 and had the aim to create and introduce a set of bilingual documents within the deconcentrated institutions.

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As a result of this above-mentioned project, a series of bilingual documents were created based on existing official documents. Each official document was produced in a bilingual format using the two languages separately, the official Romanian document being duplicated into Hungarian. These documents can be downloaded from the website of the institute at the following link: http://www.ispmn.gov.ro/node/formulare-bilingve. The second project was not as successful as the first one. Given the large number of deconcentrated institutions that belong to various ministries, the implementation of the project would have implied a large number of the official forms. Therefore, the coordination, as well as the management of this project exceeded the capacity of the institute. The Clerk (1) project had the following results: The bilingual official forms were recorded on a CD that was distributed throughout the entire Transylvania region to the mayors offices where the Hungarian population is 20 per cent or more. Mr. Bla Mark, the President of the DAHR, addressed a letter to each mayor asking the representatives of the local councils, as well as the appointed mayor, to start using the bilingual documents. (Attachment 9). We believe that the project has a series of shortcomings that are hindering the efficient use of the official bilingual forms. The most visible limitation of the project lies in its temporary character, which puts its sustainability in question. Given that the official documents are in a state of constant adjustment due to rapidly changing legislation, the translation of the documents needs to be continuously monitored and accordingly modified. This task cannot be guaranteed by the ISPMN unless there are state funds that guarantee the necessary human and financial resources. The project was finalized; the continuous monitoring and translation of the official documents were suspended. We do not have any official information related to the status of the bilingual documents and their introduction within the official administrative procedures or code of conduct. The application and the use of the bilingual documents were not clearly defined and we think that the bottom-up approach regarding the introduction of these official documents can bring only limited results. Given that these documents were distributed by the representatives of DAHR in Romania, it is not quite clear what are the official or governmental objectives related to the use of bilingual official forms. In Romania, the official forms are centrally produced. They have a standardized format and are used throughout the country. The bilingual forms created by the ISPMN are not considered official forms unless there is an official decree or a legislative decision regulating their use in the regions where they can and should be put into practice. We monitored the introduction of the bilingual forms within the operation of the Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely mayors office. The CD containing the bilingual forms was received by the representative of self-governments, but the forms have so far not been put in use. The official forms presently found in the mayors office are monolingual. Although the official forms are monolingual, there is a limited amount (5-10%) of documents written in Hungarian and registered at the central registry of the mayors office. These documents are predominantly written requests, inquiries that do not have standardized official format. Our organization tested the flow of the Hungarian language documents within the mayors office and we also verified the official procedures followed by the personnel when receiving a letter written in Hungarian. At the level of the mayors office there is a distinction in the official flow of the official monolingual formats and the documents received 39

in Hungarian. The official procedures are set up for the Romanian forms while the Hungarian inquiries are first brought to the attention of one of the deputy mayors, who is an ethnic Hungarian. He first reads the content of the Hungarian letters and then appoints a person to be in charge of the case. The two procedures are quite different, and we can say that the Hungarian letters are being processed in a partially official way. Meanwhile, the procedures for Romanian documents are well defined and work smoothly. The procedures related to the Hungarian documents create another issue that is considered a burden by the Hungarian employees who work on them. These cases are in addition to their usual daily workload. This can create tensions and even reluctance toward handling documents written in Hungarian. The county council has a slightly different approach given that the institution recently appointed a translator who works at the level of the central registry. As a result, the circulation and procedures related to the Hungarian forms is similar with the procedures taken in the case of Romanian forms as the registered documents are translated into Romanian and then processed in Romanian with the official answers being translated back into Hungarian before being. We are not aware of a clear and publicly announced mechanism related to the oral administrative procedures neither within the mayors office nor within other state institutions functioning within the county capital. The Country Report states that Mures county councils are employed individuals knowing/speaking Hungarian language capable to answer the oral/written requests worded by the citizens. (Page 173.) We consider this affirmation rather vague and we believe that its content is irregular and inaccurate. Given the low number of registered Hungarian documents (The county council operating with a translator registered a total of 26 Hungarian documents in a six-month period while the county prefect registered one Hungarian document in the same time period.) We believe it is important to differentiate between the written and the oral requests to avoid categorizing them as being the same type of administrative procedure, given that there are no statistics about the oral administrative processes. The oral information requests are more common if we compare them with the number of Hungarian written requests, however they are closely and almost exclusively linked to the existence of Hungarian staff, given that the Romanian staff generally does not speak Hungarian. In case of a Hungarian-speaking state official, the citizens can address their question in Hungarian, although given the present dynamics, it is not rare that a Hungarian citizen would first address his question in Romanian however the a Hungarian employee would shift to Hungarian.

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3.3.3 Case studies

We selected to present three recent case studies in relation to the language policies of the Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely mayors office. They vary from very basic deficiencies toward more serious ones. Christmas signs The Christmas sign case occurred in December 2008 during the Christmas holidays. Each year, the town halls representatives display illuminated signs in the town center in the front of the prefects office (and the county council, both operating within the same building) one of the most symbolic buildings in downtown. In addition to the facade area of town hall building, the signs are placed in five additional spots in key parts of the city center. Prior to 2008, these signs have always been placed in a bilingual format. In December 2008 the signs were modified and the Hungarian signs were almost entirely left out from the Christmas decoration scenery, with the exception of one sign that was placed in the front of an orange colored building, located on the opposite side of the road, facing the prefects office, which made the Hungarian sign almost imperceptible. CEMO sent an open letter to the towns mayor requesting Hungarian signs, stating that these were almost completely disregarded while placing the Romanian signs at the spots where in the past, the Hungarian signs were placed next to the Romanian ones. Instead of having one sign each in the two languages, two Romanian signs were placed in these key locations in the town center. The mayors office reacted with animosity saying that we have problems with our eyes and we ...want to create tension in a calm city where Romanians and Hungarians live peacefully together and there are Hungarian signs. If we can not see them we should take vitamin A.. One of the main TV channel from Hungary (Duna TV) with studios in Transylvania covered the situation in the news. They interviewed the spokesperson from the mayors office. (The interview, titled: Karcsonyi dszkivilgtsok Marosvsrhelyen/ Christmas signs in Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, can be viewed at: http://www.cemo.ro/hu/cemotv_hu.html.) It is important to mention that the day after the open letter was sent one of the signs was changed into Hungarian. The mayors office stated to the media that the modified sign was there all along. However, we can confirm our statement with pictures taken on the days prior to the open letter. Moreover, one of the employees of the institution stated that the sign was changed during the early hours of the morning due to some complaints. In 2009, the situation improved but the signs in the front of the county council remained monolingual. In this case, we addressed a letter to the mayor and deputy mayors requesting bilingual signs. We were satisfied that all of the signs were placed according to our demand. We are aware of the minimalist character of the case. However, the symbols presented in the public sphere have strong messages and we have chosen this case of the Christmas signs because we considered they were worth being presented in Hungarian, alongside other important messages and signs. We also believe that the public signs and the possible deficiencies related to their presence in the public sphere do not particularly fail within our competencies. We talked with several Hungarian elected councilors who promised they will take care of this case. We decided to write our request as we dealt with this issue previously and did not receive the recorded major changes and we wanted to verify what happens in the case of a written request. (The city council

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is composed of 10 seats occupied by representatives of the DAHR and 13 are represented by Romanian parties.) Official correspondence in Hungarian This case was brought to our attention by one of our volunteers, a member of CEMO. He has addressed several letters to the mayors office requesting official information regarding several issues. The first round of his requests was answered in Romanian. The second round of his requests has not been answered although he has repeatedly sent them to the mayors office. He then sent the same letter to the mayors office in Romanian although asking for the same information. His question composed in Romanian was answered. Given the existing legal background, the letters composed in Hungarian need to be answered in Hungarian and Romanian. This citizen has decided to bring his case to the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD, an independent body created to implement the principles of equality and non-discrimination, GD 1194/20001). The National Council for Combating Discrimination receives and reviews the petitions and complaints regarding violations of the legal provisions concerning the principle of equality and non-discrimination from individuals and groups of persons, NGOs active in human rights protection, other legal entities, and public institutions. The steering board of the National Council for Combating Discrimination, exercising its decision-making role, analyzes the petitions and complaints received, and adopts, by decisions, the appropriate measures, following investigations carried out by the specialized staff of the council (the Inspection Team). Once the decision has been adopted, the steering board decides on the fine that is to be paid by the person or by the legal entity, for perpetrating a discriminatory act. (Source: Council of Europe/European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/good_practices/1-specialisedper cent20bodies/sb_romania_EN.asp#P121_10474). As an outcome of this persons complaint, the steering committee brought a decision (Decision nr. 284, 20 October 2010, http://www.cncd.org.ro/noutati/Buletin-de-jurisprudenta/Hotarari-deconstatare-a-discriminarii-adoptate-in-luna-octombrie-2010-97/ ) which states that the abovedescribed procedure was found discriminatory. Web page case The same citizen sent another complaint letter to the CNCD in relation to the content of the mayors office web page. He stated that part of the public interest information, such as the local councils decisions, the minutes of the local councils meetings and other relevant and free access public information were not published on the Hungarian version of the web page. The mayors office responded that the institution respects its legal obligations toward the Hungarian citizens saying that the above-mentioned public interest information is regularly published in the daily Hungarian newspaper (Nepjsg) as well as the Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely Monitor. The only document published in these publications is the agenda of the local councils 42

meetings. The mayors office also declared there are not any legal provisions regulating the web page content of the institution. The steering board of the CNCD brought a decision (Decision nr. 94 from 2 June 2010) in which they stated that the content of the mayors offices web page does not respect the ethnic composition of the county capital nor the existing legislation. As a result, their practice was considered discriminatory. It is important to mention that the county councils web page contains the above-mentioned free access public interest information in Romanian as well as Hungarian language (e.g. the decisions of the county council are posted in both languages). Unfortunately, the case is not finalized given the fact that the mayors office appealed the decision of CNCD. The case will be heard by the Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely Court in January 2011. (The non-acceptance of CNCDs decisions in relation to the Hungarian community was already heard by the same court, the case study is presented below in the Report, Part 4.) It is important to present some information in relation to the above-presented two cases. The aim of our NGOs activities is to raise awareness on the existing legislations related to the use of Hungarian language within the state institutions. We are offering free legal counseling to citizens interested in this type of cases, and we encourage them to act according to the existing rights and legal stipulations. Our aim is to empower citizens to use their rights alongside to be aware of their obligations. The above mentioned cases were initiated by a citizen who contacted us and we supported him in his attempts however it is important to mention that given our long term objectives, we have not taken over his concerns, we merely supported him in his efforts.

3.3.4 Survey conducted in local-self governments and mayors offices of Mure/ Maros County
Before presenting the results of other surveys we would like to add some more information related to the composition of the local and county councils. In 1996 there was an ethnic Hungarian elected as Mayor. Four years later, he lost the elections against the Romanian candidate. The second round of the elections ended with the election of the Romanian candidate who won besides the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) current mayor, 51.47 per cent to 48.53 per cent. After the elections organized in 2000, the city council after the council was composed of 50.11 per cent (13 seats) Hungarian councilors, members of the DAHR. The county council won 36.9 per cent of the vote. Since 2000, the DAHR has not recouped the mayoral position. In the 2004 city council elections, the council ended up being composed of 41.86 per cent (12 seats) of the votes and 10 seats were occupied by the representatives of the larger Romanian political parties. In the same year, the DAHR representatives gained 41.89 per cent in the county council, receiving 15 seats of a total 35 seats. In 2008, the city councils composition slightly shifted; the representatives of the DAHR gained 10 seats while the Romanian political parties have won 13 seats. In 2008 a newly founded Hungarian political party, the Hungarian Civic Party (MPP), entered the political scene. The results within the county council were the following: the DAHR gained 31.6 per cent, with the

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newly competing MPP winning 4.76 per cent. (Source: Various local daily newspapers covering the local and county elections.). The city council meetings in the town of Trgu Mure/Marosvsrhely alongside with the county council meetings of Mure/Maros County are held exclusively in Romanian. The county council purchased simultaneous translation equipment that was put into use approximately 10 years ago within the councils conference room. However, it has never been used during the county councils meetings. We found the next sentence within the Country Report: Within the Covasna, Harghita, Mures county councils the meetings are also carried on in Hungarian language. (Page 173.) Given the continuous monitoring and the interviews held with the representatives of the county council, including the president of the county council, we must say that the Reports finding are not accurate given the data and information collected by our NGO. Our organization sent out a questionnaire of 10 questions (Attachment nr. 2), to local authorities, mayors offices operating in Mures/ Maros County in smaller settlements, such as villages or communes, where the Hungarian population exceeds 20 per cent. The questions formulated in this questionnaire referred to the oral and written use of. We also verified the level of awareness in relation to the above-mentioned bilingual official forms as well as we analyzed their use within the examined institutions. The questions also examined the work of the local councils focusing on the councils meetings and the documents related to these meetings such as the agenda of the local councils meetings, draft decisions, and information sent to the general public. The questions were formulated by the representatives of our NGO and were distributed to the representatives of the local self governments and state institutions by the staff of the county council who helpfully assisted our inquiry. We sent out a total of 45 questionnaires. We received answers from 39, so that we have succeeded to examine 39 local councils in Mure/ Maros County and tried to map and define the active use of the Hungarian language in these institutions. From the examined 39 localities, 14 local councils are functioning with a local assembly composed solely of Hungarian councilors, three are operating with a balanced number of local councilors (50 per cent Hungarian and 50 per cent Hungarian), four local councils operate where the Romanian local councilors are in majority and the remaining 15 local councils operate with a Hungarian majority. 1. The awareness and use of official bilingual forms (Clerk 1 project, CDs received) Out of 39 mayors offices, 29 (74 per cent) were aware of the existence and validity of the bilingual official forms and 10 (26 per cent) of these institutions were not aware of the existence of these forms.

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Awareness related to the existence of bilingual forms

10; 26% 29; 74%

a.YES

b.NO

While more than half of the local councils (76 per cent) are aware that using the bilingual official forms is legal and their use would be a sign of respecting and applying the language rights of the Hungarian community, only three local institutions (eight per cent) introduced the use of these forms. These local institutions are: the Veca/ Szkelyvcke Local Council, the Sovata/ Szovta Local Council, and the Eremitu/Nyrdremete Local Council even though it is not clear to what extent they are using these forms, given that they have not answered to the questions in relation to the number of the registered Hungarian official documents. In the other 36 local councils (92 per cent), the bilingual official forms are not in use, meaning that they were not presented and were not made officially available for the public.

Introduction of the Hungarian bilingual official forms

3; 8% 36; 92%

a. YES

b. NO

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The functioning of the Local Councils: 2. The official invitations are documents that contain the Agenda of the Council meetings as well as the draft decisions, proposals of the councilors. These invitations are prepared and distributed by the members of the local councils: The language of the invitation letters written for council members is predominantly Romanian. Out of 39 local councils, 29 (74 per cent) send the invitations exclusively in Romanian, one local council (3 per cent) sends it worded exclusively in Hungarian, while nine institutions (23 per cent) can be considered bilingual at this item, because they send the invitations in Romanian and Hungarian. Thus, only nine institutions send the message where the Romanian and Hungarian languages have the same value at the local level and every person can use his/her mother tongue, either Romanian or Hungarian.

3. Draft local council decisions Draft decisions submitted to the council-board are almost in every local council (even in those settlements that are predominantly inhabited by Hungarians) created exclusively in Romanian. This happens in the case of 35 local councils (89 per cent). Draft decisions are bilingual in the following settlements: Mgherani/Nyrdmagyars, Bogata de Mure/ Marosbogt and Blueri/Balavsr.

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Language of the draft decisions

1; 3% 3; 8%

35; 89%

RO

HU

Both

4. Minutes during the council proceedings held in Romanian language in 38 settlements.

Language of the minutes

0; 0%

38; 100%

RO

HU

5. While informing the residents about the items on the local councils agenda 14 settlements (36 per cent) share the information in a bilingual format, three settlements (8 per cent) only in Hungarian, and 22 settlements (56 per cent) transmit exclusively in Romanian to the local Romanian and Hungarian residents.

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6. Inhabitants are informed about the local councils decision exclusively in Hungarian in 1onesettlement (3 per cent), exclusively in Romanian in 22 settlements (56 per cent) while in both languages in 16 settlements (41 per cent):

Taking into consideration the provisions of the ECMRL, as well as the recommendation composed by the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), The authorities should pursue, in co-operation with representatives of national minorities, their efforts to ensure the practical application of the legislative provisions on the use of minority languages in dealings with local public administration. (Source: Opinion 128, Article 10 of the FCNM.) In relation to the use of minority languages in dealings with local administrative authorities, as well as the results of our surveys, we can declare that the use of Hungarian language within the public administration system is not functioning appropriately. The bilingual official forms were distributed, although the use of them is not officially regulated. The examined institutions are not capable of introducing them without being legally authorized.

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The results of the research were to surface the presently used procedures in regard to the functioning of the local councils. Given that these procedures are centrally regulated, the presented outcomes mainly reflect the obstacles faced by public servants and are not presented as a critique toward their activities. We are aware that the introduction of serious modification within a bureaucracy takes time and effort. Therefore, we consider these deficiencies as possible guides that can support the policy makers in the creation of a more efficient and suitable strategy, that could bring solutions to the present situation.

3.4 Conclusions and Recommendations

We can conclude that the Romanian internal legislation in relation to the use of Hungarian language as well as the 10th Articles provisions of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages are only partially fulfilled. Our recommendations are meant to reinforce, or more precisely to build, a strong reliable legal and procedural foundation that could be used to support the appropriate implementation of the language rights in Romania. We phrased our proposals hoping that they would become beneficial in our long-lasting mission toward the well-settled use of the Hungarian language within the public administration system. Through the completion of our field research, we analyzed settlements with a strong Hungarian majority and we came up with findings (as seen in the above charts) that visibly and strongly prove that the provisions regulating the use of the regional and minority language, in our case the administrative procedures related to the Hungarian language, are not functioning completely. These are the cases of smaller settlements, communes and villages, where the oral administrative procedures might be functioning given the high percentage of the Hungarian population as well as the ethnicity of the local personnel. Nevertheless the written procedures are almost entirely monolingual. We chose smaller settlements to verify the level of implementation in relation to the minority language, in state institutions where the number of personnel as well as the local population figures can make the bilingual administrative procedure easier to be implemented, but the results showed a very limited level of accomplishment. Given the internal legislation that has been put in practice since almost ten years, including the Law of Local Public Administration (215/2001) alongside other legal provisions regulating the use of the Hungarian language within the public administration system, the applications of the legal provisions are considered extremely fragile and are far from being an integral part of the overall public administrations proceedings. The legal background as presented above stipulates the oral and written use of the minority languages, in our case the Hungarian language, but the descriptions are very general and often misinterpreted by public employees and local politicians. The case studies presented demonstrate that the use of the Hungarian language within the public administration system, mayors offices, and the state institutions operated by the county councils and central organs such as ministries, is not properly managed due to the lack of general legal 49

provisions that should have been created to regulate and clearly define the use of the Hungarian language (or other minority or regional language) within the states administrative institutions. Due to the lack of clear and well established legally binding operating systems, the use of the Hungarian language will remain as random as it is at present, creating the possibility to arbitrarily decide its use within each and every institution. This confused situation can create irregularity when two state institutions are interpreting the same law in a completely different manner as in the case of the web page content where the county councils web site provides equal information in both of the languages, while the mayors office declares that the web pages content is not legally regulated. Therefore, we would like to recommend the immediate realization of a centrally and jointly (including representatives of each ministry and state institution) designed national plan/strategy that would include local as well as central implementation and would also regulate the use of the Hungarian language within the public administration and the de-concentrated institutions. This national strategy should not only be designed and carried out by a designated state institution but there must be a certain defined time limit and it has to be imperatively implemented on local and regional levels, in our case in Mure/ Maros County. The strategy and its implementation must be politically and institutionally approved and the designated state institutions responsibility regarding the realization of the strategy should be clearly defined, contrasting the actual broad and unclear legal and bureaucratic procedures. It is important to note that the creation of the national strategy should include the presence and professional input of NGOs that have professional expertise within the field of language rights. The strategy must include each and every operational procedure being used at present. These must be revised and modified accordingly, taking into account the use of regional and minority languages, in our case the Hungarian language. The procedures must embrace the operation of the following institutions: mayors offices and their institutions, county councils and their institutions, the offices of the county prefects, the local police and all of the institutions responsible for citizens security. The strategy must also include the use of bilingual official forms and their introduction must be implemented in each and every institution. The status of the de-concentrated institutions as well as their obligations related to the use of Hungarian language being a regional as well as the language of the countrys largest minority must be immediately clarified and regulated accordingly. The use of Hungarian language within the public administration system does not entirely depend on the presence of the ethnic Hungarians. The strategy and its implementation must take into consideration the lack of professional terminology given that in present there is not any official Hungarian terminology related to the public administration. This is due to the historical facts of the past decades that resulted in the missing professional and educational training within the Romanian education system, which does not include public administration studies in the Hungarian language, nor on the high school level or within the higher educational institutions. Law can be studied in Hungarian starting from this present school year (2010/2011) at Sapientia University. This is an institution entirely funded by the Hungarian government. Otherwise legal studies and legal terminology are only available in the Romanian language. Taking into 50

consideration these deficiencies, we recommend that the national strategy should include the professional training of the related personnel, aiming at the creation of a regional institutional network that would implement these types of public administration trainings in the Hungarian language. It is also important to add that the use of the Hungarian language within the public administration system can not be properly implemented without the allocation of necessary funds, including financial and human resources. At present, as Romania, along with other European countries, is facing a serious economic crisis, the implementation of language provisions can create tensions and could bring further misunderstandings in regions where ethnic Hungarians and Romanians live together. It is important to officially analyze the viability of the legal obligations related to the implementation of the language policies to clarify the fulfillment of the existing responsibilities. It is also crucial to maximally avoid illustrating the claims of the Hungarian community, regarding the implementation of language policies, as being inappropriate due to the present economic situation. Even though we have not examined the provisions of the existing language policies from the point of view of the 20 per cent threshold as applied at present, we strongly recommend the reduction of this limitation, considering it too high for certain localities where the Hungarian minority lives at a sufficient number but do not fulfill this legal stipulation. In Mure / Maros County there are numerous localities, including small towns and communes where the Hungarian population make up a relatively high proportion of the population but the communitys percentage does not reach the legally stipulated 20 per cent. However, we consider that Article 10 of the Charter should and must be applied in their case as well.

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4 EDUCATION
In this part we explore the legal status of the practical position and administrative procedures related to the use of the Hungarian language within the Romanian education system, focusing on the educational institutions operating in Mure/ Maros County. In Hornbergers estimation language policy and the language of education serve as a vehicle for promoting the utility of a certain language and promoting the rights of the speakers to participate in state and global communities in their own terms but at the same time a vehicle for promoting a certain identity, culture too, that can be different from the one that is declared by the sate as official. (1998:441.)

4.1 Legal Background

The legal provisions related to the Hungarian language are stipulated by the Constitution, the Education Law nr. 84 from 24 July 1995 and by the provisions of the Charter. The Education Law of 1995 has been controversial particularly due to Article 120, which restricts minority language education. Article 120 :(2) states: In primary schools with instruction in the languages of national minorities the subjects History of the Romanians and Geography of Romania are taught in these languages, according to the same curriculum and textbooks as are used in the classes with instruction in Romanian. In middle and secondary minority schools the subjects History of the Romanians and Geography of Romania are taught in Romanian, according to the same curricula and textbooks as are used for the grades with instruction in Romanian. Examination in History of the Romanians and Geography of Romania shall be taken in the language in which it was studied. By law, the content of education does not adapt to minority groups, even in classes where education is provided in a minority language. Specifically, textbooks are to be identical and transliterations of proper nouns are seemingly disallowed. The subject History of Romanians was called History of Romania before, encompassing all Romanian citizens regardless of their origin. The changes related to this matter brought in the following sub-section: (3) In curricula and textbooks of World History and History of the Romanians also the history and traditions of national minorities living in Romania shall be reflected. Finally, according to the subsection. (4) Members of national minorities may request lessons on their history and culture at secondary level, but the Ministry of Education retains the right to oversee the content of textbooks and all curricula.

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The law, as initially passed, caused much controversy among representatives of the Hungarian minority and after the change of governments in November 1996; a process of revision of the law began. The revision of Article 120, by the 1999 decree, says: .. (2) In primary schools with tuition in the languages of national minorities, the History of the Romanians and the Geography of Romania are taught in these languages, according to identical curricula and textbooks as for the grades with tuition in Romanian; it is compulsory to transcribe and acquire the toponomy and Romanian proper names. In middle schools and in secondary schools, the History of the Romanians and the Geography of Romania are taught in Romanian, according to the same curricula and the same textbooks as for the grades with tuition in Romanian. Examination in the History of the Romanians and the Geography of Romania shall be taken in the language in which it was studied. By law, the content of education does not adapt to minority groups, even in classes where education is provided in the minority language. Specifically, textbooks are to be identical, and transliterations of proper nouns are seemingly disallowed. Regarding minority education there has been a modification among the legal provisions in the following sub-section that, (3) In curricula and textbooks of World History and the History of the Romanians, the history and the traditions of national minorities in Romania shall be also reflected. In its opinion composed in 2001, the advisory committee of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) questioned whether this integration of minority history and traditions is happening in practice. The advisory committee was also concerned by reports from various sources that history teaching does not sufficiently reflect Romanias ethnic diversity. In 2005, the advisory committee has repeatedly expressed that, In the education field, the authorities should attach priority to strengthening the multicultural dimension of curricula and syllabuses. They should, in particular, review textbooks in co-operation with representatives of minorities, so as to give an appropriate reflection of the diversity of Romanian society. (Source: Article 6 of the Framework Convention Tolerance and intercultural dialogue, Recommendations 95, 2005.) Finally, according to subsection (4), members of national minorities may request appropriate lessons in history and culture at the secondary level, but the Ministry of Education retains the right to oversee the content of textbooks and all curricula. Both in publicly funded minority education and in private education, according to international human rights law, the state must ensure that a minimum level of acceptability is reached in the content of education. While revision of textbooks to ensure an acceptable level of quality is justified, this cannot be used as an excuse for replicating the content from one language to another; teaching Hungarian children the History of Romanians in high-quality, well-translated textbooks is missing the essential nature of minority rights in education: that education must balance the interests of all.

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The advisory committee has presented in its opinion the following recommendation: The authorities should review the curriculum and syllabi of schools so as to adequately incorporate aspects which will enhance the countrys ethnic and cultural diversity and ensure that the majority are more aware of the history and cultural identity of minorities. At the legislative level, the authorities are encouraged to promote an integrated and multicultural approach to education when addressing the right to education of persons belonging to national minorities. (Source: Article 12 of the Framework Convention Multicultural and intercultural dimension of education, Recommendations 140, 2005.) Article 124 of the Education Law (1995) states, In education at all levels entrance and graduation (school leaving) examinations can be taken in the language in which the respective subject matters have been studied, according to the present law. This final provision replaced the earlier formulation, which was more restrictive: In the education at all levels admission and graduation examinations are taken in Romanian. Admission and graduation examinations may be taken in the mother tongue for schools, classes and specialization forms in which teaching is provided in the respective mother tongue, in accordance with the present law. There is an imbalance in the application of this provision, however, as those who have studied in languages other than Romanian must, at all levels, take and pass more examinations than their peers who study in Romanian. In lower secondary education, there is a system of continual assessment and, after the eighth year, there are official examinations administered by the Ministry of National Education in the Romanian language and literature, mathematics and Romanian history and geography, plus, for those who have studied in a language other than Romanian, an extra examination on the language and literature of national minorities. This is the prerequisite for the School Leaving Certificate, which is essential for entrance into Upper Secondary School. In relation to the legal background, it is imperative to mention that a new Law on Education was introduced. The law will enter into force by the end of 2011. The new Law on Education was highly contested by the opposition because of its Articles modifying the present stipulation as regard to the minority language education modifying the teaching language of the History and Geography from Romanian to the minority language as well as the modification of the methodology regarding the teaching of Romanian, as a second language, for ethnic minorities. In the last two decades there were severeal attempts to start an educational reform given the criteria imposed by the EU educational policies as regard to the number of obligatory school years, as well as with the aim to modify the strong theoretical approach of the present pedagogy. It is also relevant to mention that the Romanian education system did not go through a very deep and serious transformation in many decades. Given the new disposition of the present law, as well as the huge political resistance showed toward its introduction, we have serious doubts about its efficient implementation in regard to minority language education with a special focus on the Hungarian language. The law was contested by the opposition and the Constitutional Court initially declared it unconstitutional (on 54

November 17, 2010) on technical grounds. However the new law finally passed and it will enter into force by the end of 2011. The new law on education includes many other amendments. However, the changes related to the teaching of History and Geography, as well as the modifications regarding the methodology of the Romanian as taught for the minorities, have been severely attacked in the media starting from May when the parliament started the debates on the new law. One recent editorial that appeared in a daily newspaper: There is a well known reason why authorities had to pass it (the Law on Education) by taking responsibility in Parliament. The ruling coalition includes the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR), whose votes are essential to keep the Boc (Prime Minister of Romania) Cabinet in power. UDMR badly wants to see the Education Law enacted in its current form, so it blackmails the power to rapidly enforce the anti-Romanian discriminatory provisions that would never pass following a debate in Parliament, even in a Legislative dominated by a ruling coalition which obviously - supports the government. The anti-Romanian discriminatory provisions mainly refers to the teaching of History, Geography, and Romanian. The implementation of the new law on education will become the subject of a further report or research CEMO is planning to conduct in this field. We are planning to monitor the introduction of the new textbooks regarding each subject. We are firmly convinced after conducting a research of similar issues that the introduction of these extremely sensitive modifications will be followed by many obstacles and will need a long time period to verify its success or the possible deficiencies regarding the education of the ethnic minorities.

4.2 Educational polices during the communist regime

We believe that before presenting the actual and recent situation of the education policies regarding the national minorities, we must take a look at the educational actions of the previous decades for the reason that we are firmly convinced that these trends and practices tend to change very slowly in societies. Therefore they might still strongly influence the thinking and attitude of those active and responsible in the educational field. We have selected a publication of the Minority Rights Group (George Schpflin-Hugh Poulton: Romania Ethnic Hungarians, Minority Rights, Expedite Graphic Limited Murray House, 3 Vandon Street, London, SW1H OAG 1990, Page: 12-13.) that we believe is the most suitable to present the educational policies of the previous political regimes focusing on the education of the national minorities. The existence of an autonomous educational network, through which the minority can safeguard its cultural existence and reproduce its intellectual leadership in each generation, is regarded as an essential right. In the case of the Hungarians of Transylvania, the minority has had a long tradition of a high level of education notably through religious schools and had a welleducated intelligentsia and skilled working class. Immediately after the Second World War, the full educational network, taking in nursery, primary, secondary and tertiary (i.e. university) levels, was organized. Hungarian-language schools were opened throughout Transylvania where there was a substantial Hungarian 55

population and even in the Regat in the Hungarian-inhabited areas of Moldavia there were 72 Hungarian-language schools in 1958 (there was not one in the mid-1970s). The pinnacle of the system was the Hungarian-language university network, consisting of the Bolyai University in Cluj/Klozsvr, the Medical Pharmaceutical Faculty at Tirgu Mures, (the town examined in our Report) and an agricultural college in Cluj/Klozsvr. In other words, discounting the pressure that weighed equally on all the inhabitants of Romania that could be regarded as inherent in the authoritarianism of the 1950s, it was possible to receive a Hungarian-language education. In the aftermath of 1956, however, a decision was taken to dismantle this structure. As a general principle, the dismantling of the Hungarian-language educational network took place in two stages. First, Hungarian schools were merged with Romanian ones and functioned as sections; and subsequently, the two sections were de facto merged, so that in practical terms it became a privilege to receive an education in Hungarian. The merging of the Bolyai University with the Romanian Babes University in 1959 was the most public aspect of this process. It took place at a meeting presided over by Ceauescu and surrounded by the secret police; yet it was given the aspect of a voluntary decision by both institutions. The subsequent suicide of the last Rector of the Bolyai University, Lszl Szabdi, who had been personally pilloried by Ceauescu somewhat detracted from this idyllic picture. The net result of the merger was that university education in Hungarian shrank drastically. The subjects taught in Hungarian were determined by a party resolution of 1971 as being philosophy, history, economics, psychology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, geography and geology, plus medicine and pharmacy. In other words, none of the applied sciences was taught in Hungarian, which meant that Hungarians were by and large restricted to medicine and teaching (careers in the public administration were occasionally possible). The picture was further complicated by the constantly fluctuating number of courses given in Hungarian in each subject. In addition, some of the Hungarian-language courses that were given in some of the faculties, in chemistry for example, were actually ideological, i.e. Marxism-Leninism courses and not technical ones. The downgrading of the Hungarian element at the Babes-Bolyai University emerged from the statistics given in Table 3 overleaf. According to the memorandum prepared by Lajos Takcs adapted from data in the Memorandum by Lajos Takacs, 1977, in samizdat, a former pro-rector of the university, onetime nationalities minister, and an old communist, in the session 1957-58 (i.e. the last before the merger of the two universities), the total number of Hungarian undergraduates following fulltime courses in Romania was about 5,500. Of these, 4,082 were studying through the Hungarian language and the remainder in Romanian; the total number of undergraduates in the country was 51,094, so that Hungarians formed around 10.75% of all undergraduates. By the year 1974-75, the total number of undergraduates in Romania had more than doubled to 108,750. However, the number of Hungarian undergraduates had risen to 6,188 or declined proportionately to 5.7%. The proportion appears to have remained constant in the year 1977-78, according to calculations based on the figures given in the official booklet Full Harmony and Equality. (No author; A living reality in Romania today: Full Harmony and Equality between the Romanian People and the Co-Habiting Nationalities, [no publisher or printer, date or place of publication], distributed by Romanian Diplomatic Missions in the spring of 1978, in various languages).

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It should be noted that these percentages referred to all Hungarian students, in other words to those who study in Romanian as well as those who study in Hungarian. The proportion of Hungarians in the total population according to the official figures of the 1977 census was 7.91%, thus this refers to 1.7 million Hungarians and not the estimated 2 million. The principal method used for this downgrading was the dispozitii interne (internal dispositions/regulations). So, for example, an internal regulation prescribed that in each year in each subject, study groups could be established as long as they had a minimum of 15 students. If, for example, in chemistry, there were 60 students in the first year that could form the basis of four study groups; if there were at least 15 Hungarians, one study group could be held in Hungarian, but if there were only 14 Hungarians, then all four would be held in Romanian. Often this could be ensured by admissions policy, with never more than a dozen Hungarians being accepted. A generally similar policy was followed with regard to secondary and primary education. Here the effective law was Law nr. 278/1973, which stipulated that at the primary level, there had to be a minimum of 25 applicants every year before a class giving instruction in the minority language was opened for that year; at the secondary level, the minimum number of applicants was 36. Thus under the 1973 law, if there were only 24 Hungarian (or, for that matter, German) applicants, no class would be opened for them and the children were obliged to go to a Romanian-language class. It is significant here to note that the settlement pattern of Transylvania made it difficult to raise the required quota of pupils, given that the average population of villages was between 500 and 1,000 inhabitants. By contrast, there is no restriction on Romanian pupils: Romanian language sections or classes shall be organized regardless of the number of pupils, stated the 1973 law. The significance was that when 25 Hungarian school children failed to turn up in any one year, even in purely Hungarian villages, they had to be educated in Romanian. For a while, parents attempted to resolve the problem after the 1973 decree law by bussing children to the nearest large village, where a Hungarian school still existed, but the authorities banned this on the pretext of insufficient petrol (although Romania was the largest producer of oil in Europe). Parallel with the closing down of Hungarian-language classes was the dismissal of Hungarian teachers. The story of secondary schooling in Huedin, the centre of the predominantly Hungarian Calata district, is instructive in this context. After the 1948 school reform, there was one school in the town with seven classes, teaching in both Romanian and Hungarian. Shortly thereafter, the Romanian section was upgraded to an eleven-class school, but the Hungarian remained at the seven-class level until 1955, when the Hungarian section was also upgraded to take pupils until school leaving age. In 1976, the schooling needs of the town were reassessed and the decision was taken to create three Romanian sections teaching the last three secondary years in the humanities and one Hungarian. In addition, technical subjects were taught in one Romanian and one Hungarian section each. On the basis of the number of applicants, the number of classes that could be filled was two Romanian humanities and one Romanian technical, while there were enough Hungarians for another Hungarian section in the humanities. In other words, there would have been a 2:2 proportion in the humanities and 1:1 in the technical subjects. But there was no question of this; instead, the extra Hungarians were squeezed into the existing classes or parents were dissuaded by pressure from sending their children to Hungarian classes.

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An area of particular concern to the Hungarians was the way in which the Romanian authorities were determined to keep Hungarian-language technical or vocational education to a minimum. By finishing four years at a technical school (liceul technic) a pupil could gain skilled qualifications in various trades and hope to go on to the tertiary level. The significance of technical education in a rapidly industrializing society is self-evident it is one of the principal avenues of advancement. The picture in Cluj/Klozsvr County, where in 1966 Hungarians formed 26.1% of the population, was the following: in the mid-1970s at the opening of the 1973-74 school years, there were 174 Romanian-language classes for the first year of technical schooling against two Hungarian. The Hungarian-language classes were textile technology and building; the range in the Romanian classes was much broader (pedagogy, health, agriculture, mechanical and electrical engineering, applied chemistry and information technology among others). By 1976-77 the situation had changed somewhat, in that Romanian-language classes had increased to 192, while Hungarian ones had risen to nine (one in agriculture and the rest in various industrial branches, including mechanical and electrical engineering and iron foundry). The general aim of the 1973 education law was to transform the Romanian education system by making it two-thirds technical and one-third humanities in keeping with the policy of rapid industrialization. Concern at the impact of this on the minority was openly expressed in the Cluj/Klozsvr Hungarian-language journal Korunk. The article asked whether Hungarians educated in Romanian would be able to retain their mother tongue? and it suggested that the Romanian state would itself lose by the deracination of the newly-educated minority intelligentsia if it lost its mother tongue and therefore contact with the Hungarian masses. The emergence of a superficial, assimilationist type of man is not in the interests of our socialist state which is based on equal rights. The overall picture for secondary education in the mid-1970s was that in 1974-1975, only 5.5 per cent of the school population was in Hungarian-language schooling (as against 8 per cent in 1955-56) and on the technical side the figure was a mere 1.4 per cent (as against 6.1 per cent in 1955-56). There was later some improvement. For the year 1977-78, the Ministry of Education planned 163 technical and 106 humanities classes for the whole of Romania. It was reported that after the publicizing of the minority issue in the West and at the March 1978 plenum of the Hungarian Nationality Council, Ceauescu promised that a thorough investigation of the system would be undertaken. The net result of this very slow development of the Hungarian-language educational network was that a substantial proportion of Hungarian schoolchildren were not educated in their mother tongue. According to Arpad Debreczi, head of the Nationalities Department of the Ministry of Education, in the year 1971-72 about one fifth of Hungarian schoolchildren were not receiving their education in their mother tongue. Calculations based on other Romanian statements indicate that this proportion remained constant in later years. Indeed Lazars document argued that this figure understated the real proportion of Hungarians in the Romanian language network and the proportion was anything from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. It should be added that a certain proportion of Hungarian parents may have genuinely preferred to send their children to Romanian-language schools for reasons of social mobility, but the proportions involved were too high to be accounted for by natural assimilation.

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4.3 Education in Mure/Maros County

In Mure/Maros County there are a large number of educational institutions: 433 kindergartens, 211 educational institutions offering primary level education between the grades 1-4, and 156 educational specialized institutions for grades 5-8. The number of high schools is relatively small with 38 schools that operate exclusively in the urban areas of the county. (See Table nr. 4.) The school cycles are the following: 1. Primary school education, grades 1-4; 2. Lower secondary school education organized in Gymnazium (Romanian terminology) for grades 5-8; 3. First level of high school or arts and trades schools (vocational) for grades 9-10; 4. Upper level of high school for grades 11-12 (including a year 13 for persons attending the so-called evening classes e.g. distance-learning) Educational Institutions in Mure/Maros County, school year 2009-2010 (Source: County School Inspectorate, Evaluation Report from September 2009, http://www.edums.ro/Raport%20starea%20inv%202009%202010%20Mures.pdf ) Type of school Kindergartens Urban Area 111 Rural Area 322 185 46 0 Total 433 211 156 38

Primary school 26 Grades 1-4 Primary school 202 Grades 5-8 High Schools 38 (including institutions for vocational education) Table 4: Schools in Mure/Maros County

The total number of children attending schools, including kindergarten, is: 94,021. Of these, 66,421 are studying in Romanian-language classes, 30,482 attend Hungarian-language classes, 1,184 go to German-language classes, and 70 children are enrolled in Romani-language classes. (Source: County School Inspectorate, Evaluation Report from September 2009.) The county school inspectorates ensure the implementation of educational policies and decisions of the Ministry of Education. The structure of the county school inspectorates is established through ministerial order (considering the importance of quality assurance in education, each county school inspectorate appoints an inspector responsible for quality assurance in education at county level). Each county school inspectorate annually evaluates the education system at the

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county level and, based on this evaluation and the national educational policy, establishes the management plan for the next school year detailing objectives, activities, resources and responsibilities. In Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely are 15 (Attachment nr. 9) primary schools providing education from grade 1 till the 8th grade, the total number of the high schools is 18. The children study in bilingual schools where Romanian language teaching classes exist together with the Hungarian language teaching classes. There are two schools functioning with Hungarian classes, which operate within the same building, Bolyai Lyceum and Reformed High School, the latter belonging to the Reformed Church. There are five high schools that have exclusively Romanian classes: Colegiul National Alexandru Papiu Ilarian, School Group Gheorghe Marinescu, Colegiul Economic Transilvania, and School Group Aurel Persu. There are 20 high schools within the county. In the town Sighioara/ Segesvr there are three high schools with classes taught solely in Romanian and one high school with classes in Romanian and Hungarian. In Reghin/ Rgen there are two bilingual schools and one high school with classes only in Romanian. In Tirnaveni/ Dicsszentmrton there are two monolingual high schools providing education in Romanian language, and one bilingual institution. In the following towns there is one bilingual high school in each of the settlements: Ludus/ Ludas, Sovata/ Szovta, Band/ Bnd, Miercurea Nirajului/ Nyrdszereda, Sngeorgiu de Pdure/ Erdszentgyrgy, and Srmau/ Srms. In the following localities the school is monolingual, with classes taught in Romanian: Deda/ Dda, Dumbrvioara/ Sromberke, Iernut/ Radnt, and Gurghiu/ Grgny. (See table at the Attachment nr. 11.) It is important to mention that in the localities where we find only monolingual high school classes there are bilingual primary schools. Graduates of these schools can continue their studies in Hungarian in the same community unless they commute to a different settlement where there are bilingual schools. Hungarian families, given the lack of financial and infrastructural support, often disregard this option. As a result, many families often choose to have their children continue their studies in the Romanian language, which can create substantial problems for them as they are not always familiar with the Romanian terminology for each of their studied subjects. In the case of the Hungarian school Bolyai Farkas Lyceum, we would like to present the background of its foundation given that it is linked to a conflict that occurred in the county capital of Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely. In January 1990, the National Salvation Front, being the leading [government] coalition in Romania that was formed right after the 1989 revolution, has brought a decision concerning the separation of Romanian and Hungarian schools and the formation of Hungarian-language education. This decision met opposition from the Romanian population and was soon withdrawn. Continued demands by Hungarians to create a bilingual educational system added to the mutual tensions and inspired mass demonstrations on both sides. This in turn contributed to the atmosphere of mutual accusations and enmity that gave birth to the infamous events in the Transylvanian town of Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely. Ethnic Hungarians wanted to restore an old Hungarian high school there (Bolyai Lyceum) but met opposition from Vatra Romneasca (Romanian Hearth orCradle an organisation of Romanian national extremists, guided by the motto Romanians were in Transylvania first), which was propagating the view that what 60

actually lies behind the Hungarian demands is an attempt to disunite Transylvania from Romania. Being a militant organization with allegedly close contacts with former Ceausescus secret police and local communist party representatives, Vatra Romneasca was apparently seeking to continue an old regimes policy of the forced assimilation of the Hungarian minori ty. In March 1990 supporters of Vatra Romneasca launched a physical attack against the headquarters of Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) in Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely. The local authorities did not prevent an escalation of the violence and an outbreak of riots that soon turned into street battles. Some 15,000 Hungarians and several thousand Romanians, supported by inhabitants of neighboring Romanian villages, took part in the bloody clashes that finally ended with the intervention of the Romanian Army. (Source: Lessons from Romania, Prevention of Ethnic Conflict, Berghof Occasional Paper No. 19; August 2002, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, http://www.berghof-conflictresearch.org/documents/publications/boc19e.pdf). The Bolyai Farkas Lyceum became a Hungarian school in 2002.

4.4 The Implementation of the Charter

In the field of education, the Charters provisions adopted by Romania are included in Article 8, paragraphs: 1ai, bi, ci, di, ei, fi, g, h, i,e . The Charters provisions in regard to preschool (ai, bi) as well as primary education (ai, bi), are well implemented although there are issues we would like to raise with regard to primary education. These deficiencies can be located at the level of the optional subjects, curriculum independently decided by each school. Regarding the optional courses that are compulsory for each grade starting from the first grade, the teachers of these subjects (e.g. English, German, French, Music, Sports and IT), as well as other optional courses as regulated by the law, these are often taught by Romanian teachers who do not speak Hungarian. Parents who complained about these situations contacted our NGO. They explained that their children were too young and they had little knowledge of Romanian at the age of 7 or 8, since their mother tongue is Hungarian. As a result, these children often had difficulties in understanding their Romanian teachers. It is important to mention that the Hungarian children are not exposed to the Romanian language as much as their Romanian counterparts whose mother tongue is Romanian. The Hungarian children speak Hungarian with their families and learn a little Romanian while in kindergarten. However, at the age of school enrollment, their active Romanian is more passive and less rich then that of their Romanian peers. Having a teacher who cannot provide explanations in the childrens mother tongue, in addition to the issue of children not being able to sufficiently communicate with that pedagogue, especially in the first grades, can put a very significant burden on the shoulders of the Hungarian children. We have not conducted a methodical research in relation to this matter; however we encountered several such cases in the town of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. The figures collected we collected show that in the town of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, the optional courses in Hungarian, are taught in approximately 40 per cent of the cases by Romanian teachers who generally do not speak Hungarian.

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Regarding provision ci of Article 8: to make available secondary education in the relevant regional or minority languages, we encountered much more severe problems. The Law on Education guarantees the education in the minority (Hungarian) language from kindergarten to postgraduate studies. Every subject can theoretically be taught in Hungarian (in places where there are enough Hungarian children, with the exception of the history and geography of Romania. We are not sure what the exact meaning of the enough and we consider that this is decided quite arbitrarily depending on the school management. For example, in Sovata/ Szovta in Domokos Kzmr School in a ninth-grade Romanian class in 2009, 20 out of 28 students were Hungarian (data taken from the official web page of the School Inspectorate in Mure/ Maros County). After the Hungarian class was filled, those Hungarian children who wanted to remain in the settlement and did not want or could not afford for structural reasons to go to another town, had no other choice than to study in a Romanian class. However, there another Hungarian class should have been opened for those 20 children, with provisions made for the Romanian children as well. Another issue we discovered is linked to the number of classes founded in the high school cycle. As the table (Table nr. 4, page 59) shows, the number of primary schools is extremely high especially in the rural part of the county (Attachment nr. 10). After completing the first eight grades, the children studying in rural areas have to move to a high school operating close to their locality. There are areas where we can find high schools operating with classes taught in Hungarian as well as Romanian. However, we can find regions where there are not any options for continuing studies in Hungarian unless the children commute to a further town or the county capital. This situation goes along with another practice that makes the continuation of studies in Hungarian language even harder. Each year the county school inspectorate prepares a Draft Schooling Plan that is sent the Ministry of Education for further approval. This draft includes the number of classes to be founded in the 9th grade and the number of students graduating from the 8th grade. On this subject we would like to present you a case study that can give a relatively objective description of this issue.

4.4.1 Case study: Enrollment Plan in Mure/Maros County

In January 2009, the representatives of the Hungarian Teachers Association of Romania together with our NGO discovered serious discrepancies in the Mure/ Maros County's Draft School Enrollment Plan for the 2009-2010 school year. As a result we jointly initiated a petition (together with online and in-person signature collection) addressed to the county school inspectorate, requesting an amendment to the draft. The draft plan as posted on the county school inspectorates web site s howed that 462 Hungarian-speaking children (from Mure/ Maros County) did not have the opportunity to continue their education in their mother language, given that in the case of the Hungarian students, the draft school enrollment plan indicated an allocation of 1,400 places for a total of 1,862 8th-grade graduates. Given that the continuation of the studies is mandatory by law, each of the 1,862 graduate students was required to carry on with their studies. However, the enrollment plan included only 1,400 places for Hungarian-speaking students while Romanian language classes were allocated 4,200 places for 3,700 Romanian elementary school graduates. This provided the Romanian graduates a wide range of options for the continuation of their

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studies whereas the Hungarian students school choice was much more limited. Parallel to our signature-collecting action, the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD) initiated an ex officio complaint against the practice of the county school inspectorate. The CNCDs steering committee passed a decision finding the draft enrollment plan discriminatory and recommending that the county school inspectorate revise and modify the plan offering a 1:1 allocation of classes for both Romanian and Hungarian students (i.e. 1,862 places for Hungarian children and 3,700 places for Romanian children) based on the figures of graduation The CNCD decision (Number 47 from 27 January 2009) requested the county school inspectorate to change the Draft Enrollment Plan by increasing the number of Hungarianlanguage classes and offering equal chances within the education system. During this period the County School Inspectorate announced that the number of the Hungarian classes was increased. The enrollment plan case was strongly politicized due to the huge success of the signature collection effort. Hungarian politicians claimed that the increase in the number of classes taught in Hungarian was implemented due to their efficient intervention. It is important to add that this type of petition and signature collection in relation to the deficiencies of the education system have not been widely used before by NGOs. The education problems were usually solved by the politicians. This is mainly due to Romanias past and the relatively weak positions of NGOs in Romania. Even though the number of Hungarian classes was raised, these figures were repeatedly modified three months later by the representatives of the County School Inspectorate, reducing the number of classes for Hungarian students. Our NGO continuously monitored this issue and we decided, together with the representatives of the Hungarian Teachers Association of Romania, to submit a complaint to the CNCD referring to the first decision made by the CNCDs steering committee in January. After the examination of the complaint sent in the name of the Hungarian Teachers Association of Romania, the CNCDs steering committee repeatedly decided that the School Enrollment Plan was discriminatory (Decision nr. 291 from 14 May 2009). Given that the figures were decreased after being initially increased following the first CNCD decision and the strong pressure coming from both the political as well as from NGO level the steering committee fined the County School Inspectorate 650 RON (150 EURO). The Mure/Maros County School Inspectorate sued the CNCD. During the first trial day the Hungarian Teachers Association of Romania (HTAR) wanted to enter the trial, yet they were also sued. The court trial lasted more than one year; at last the Court of Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely voided the steering committees decision declaring that the School Enrollment Plan has not affected the education of the Hungarian children (Court Decision nr. 153 from 9 November 2010). This verdict testifies that the interpretation and the actual practice of the existing legislation in regard to the obligation of the state stated in the Charters Article 8, ci: to make available secondary education in the relevant regional or minority languages is only partially fulfilled by the educational institutions and completely disregarded by the representatives of the rule of law.

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4.4.2 Vocational Education in Mure/Maros County

As regard to the Article 8 and its paragraph related to the vocational education: to make available a substantial part of technical and vocational education in the relevant regional or minority languages.., we conducted research that has brought to the surface the discrepancies between the legal provisions and the actual situation. The Education Law stipulates, At the level of vocational, high-school or post-high school public education, teaching is performed in the mother tongue of the national minority, while special terminology is acquired in Romanian. The initial vocational training represents a form of training realized through a kind of technical and vocational education as part of the formal education system in view of achieving a qualification before entering employment. In June 2003, a new act (268/2003) was adopted by the parliament that supplemented the Education Act 84/1995. It extended the compulsory education to 10 years, changed the age corresponding to the start of compulsory education to six years, proposed new forms of vocational education and initial training, and facilitated the transition to higher education levels and lifelong learning. The extension of compulsory education to 10 years, has determined major changes in the Initial Vocational Education and Training, which include modifications in terms of structure, curriculum, finalizing conditions of various school tracks, and development of the social partnership. As part of the pre-university education, the technical and vocational education is now organized on three education levels: lower secondary education (two study years, part of the compulsory education), upper secondary education and post-high school education. Within the lower and upper secondary education, the technical and vocational education is organized in two education routes: the high school technologic route, consisting of the lower cycle (2 study years) and the upper cycle (2 study years) of high school and the progressive professionalizing route, consisting of the trades and arts school (2 study years), the completion year (1 study year) and the upper cycle of high school (2 study years). Arts and Trades Schools (SAM) is the name of the new education level included in the compulsory education, which replaces the apprenticeship school and the vocational school for which schooling was organized until 2002-2003. (Source: European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training, http://www.eqavet.eu/gns/what-we-do/implementing-the-framework/romania.aspx.) It is important to add that the new Education Law will modify the above-presented legislation. In this Report we analyze the actual situation that is stipulated by the present legislation. The Romanian Ministry of Education has the overall responsibility for vocational education and training within the formal education system. It develops strategies and policies, prepares legislation, and manages public education. It also approves curricula, national assessment standards, and the school network. The regional representatives of the ministry, the county school inspectorates, ensure the implementation of and compliance with the policies and decisions of the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and its regional branches, the County Labor and Social Protection Directorates, are responsible for the retraining and further training of the labor force (11 European Journal). In Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely there are six schools providing vocational education and training. These educational institutions are the following: Avram Iancu School Group, Gheorghe.

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Sincai School Group, Constantin Brncui School Group, Electromures School Group, Chemical Industry School Group, and the Traian Vuia School Group. During our research, we conducted interviews with the directors and teachers of the vocational schools in an effort to ascertain the number of Hungarian and Romanian classes as well as the number of pedagogues teaching in Hungarian. In the Ion Vlasiu School Group, Wood Industries School of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely in the past academic year (2009 -2010) enrolled a total of 235 students. Four Romanian and five Hungarian-language classes had 86 students in the Romanian and 149 students in the Hungarian sections. While the Hungarian classes were completely filled, the Romanian classes functioned only with 15 to 22 students per class and even in these they had 19 students whose mother tongue was Hungarian. Similar is the ratio for the special vocational classes and evening classes. For the latter, although half of the students are Hungarian, Hungarian-language classes are not offered. In the Hungarian-language classes, all the vocational subjects are taught in Romanian only. There are no Hungarian-speaking vocational teachers employed, and among the six craftsmen employed only two are Hungarian. There is no Hungarian vice-principal at the school and also the administrative personnel are solely composed of Romanian-speaking persons. Next to the case of the Wood Industries School of Trgu Mure /Marosvsrhely, we could speak about the Electromures School Group as well. In this school, children can study in the following specializations: Intensive Informatics, Automation, Accountability, and Electro mechanics. These specializations can be studied theoretically either in Romanian or Hungarian, however the percentage of teachers who are able to teach in Hungarian (meaning that they have a knowledge of Hungarian) proves that the education of children who have chosen to study in Hungarian, remains only a theoretical possibility and not a practical realization. In numbers: out of 11 teachers employed at the vocational department, only two can teach in the Hungarian language. However, the percentage of pupils who learn at the Hungarian and Romanian line of studies is almost balanced. Based on the information received from one of the schools vocational teachers, 85 per cent of the vocational subjects are studied in Romanian and only 15 per cent in Hungarian. It is important to add that in the ninth grade (e.g. the first year of high school), the Hungarian students are not familiar with the terminology of the vocational subjects given that they have not studied them before. In the case of this school we want to present a short case study in which we were involved at a certain level. The parents of a 9th grade class contacted us with the aim to support them in the writing of a request in which they would ask the school management to apply the law and make available the vocational education in Hungarian. The petition was signed by each parent (30) of the classs students and was submitted to the school management as well as to the county school inspectorate in November 2010. The schools official answer contained the following explanation: The request of the parents is illegal and groundless. Therefore we cannot change the present situation. The county school inspectorate did not provided so far an official answer although the time limit set by the law is 30 days.

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Let us also present the case of Traian Vuia School Group. In this school children can enroll to the following classes: Telecommunication (one class with Romanian as the language of education and one class with Hungarian), Cosmetics (one class in Romanian and one in Hungarian) and three other profiles, which are functioning with only Romanian-language instruction. While in the classes where the instruction is in Hungarian, for example in Cosmetics, there are 30-32 pupils, which the Romanian language classes are functioning only with 20-22 children and half of these are ethnic Hungarians coming from rural areas where they have very little practical exposure to the use of Romanian as they come from localities with almost 100 per cent Hungarian populations. These students have a problem with the high-level use of Romanian language, not to mention the core of the professional terminology (this information was provided during personal interviews with teachers from this school, to whom anonymity was guaranteed). As a result of this examination, we declare that the vocational education as stipulated in the present legislation is facing serious insufficiencies in regard to the use of the Hungarian language.

4.4.3 Teaching of History and Geography

The paragraph g of the Article 8 stipulates the following: ..to make arrangements to ensure the teaching of the history and the culture which is reflected by the regional or minority language. At present the History and Geography is studied in Romanian (Pages 50, 51). The new Education Act is meant to modify this practice however the presentation below is still valid given that the the ew law will not enter into force at the end of 2011. Ben and Pntek (two Transylvanian linguists) draw our attention to the ambiguous aspect of the law in relation to the teaching language of the two subjects: history and geography. According to these linguists, these subjects are still considered to have national/ nationalist content (Ben and Pntek, Ndor and Szarka 2003). Besides, taking into account that children have final examinations in these subjects (studied in Romanian language) and the result strongly defines the probability to be admitted into the secondary education, this could make the situation of Hungarian children more difficult. The law also asserts that the education needs to guarantee the cultivation of love directed toward the Romanian customs and toward the history of the Romanian nation. (Law on Education, Art 4.2.) Ben and Pntek highlight the discriminatory aspect of this article, due to the fact that education deals only with the cultivation of the Romanian culture. This calls into question the exteriorization and implementation of the 26 th paragraph of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UDHR) namely that education shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations. (Ben and Pntek in Ndor and Szarka 2003.) In this respect, children should learn how to cherish not only the Romanian culture, but also the cultures of different minorities present in the territory of the state. Moreover, we consider that the introduction for Romanian children as optional course the language of those minorities that they are cohabitating with, would truly promote the understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations (UDHR, Article 26).

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4.4.4 Linguistic Landscape in the schools of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely

We consider it very important to map and analyze the linguistic climate in schools where children spend a large amount of their time and which has a tremendous effect on their personality development, influencing their self-esteem as well as their respect toward the others. These are the main reasons behind our decision to conduct a linguistic landscape (LL) analysis. Our aim was to analyze how language policies and multicultural coexistence are reflected within the public schools (being state institutions and having legal responsibilities related to the use of minority language). The LL functions as correctness as it calls for the attention of the public, a process in which not all linguistic items in the LL participate on an equal basis. The linguistic landscape is thus the public space as marked by language. (Source: Chrismi-Rinda Kotze: The Linguistic Landscape of Rural South Africa after 1994: A Case Study of Philippolis, in the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies, Sign Language and Language Practice at the University of the Free State, January 2010, Accessed: 14 January 11.) Our NGO designed a questionnaire to map the LL of the schools. We sent our questionnaire in cooperation with the Hungarian Teachers Association of Romania. The questionnaire (Attachment nr. 12) was distributed to every school in Mure/ Maros County although we have received answers from only a few schools. For this reason, we recruited volunteers to map and analyze the LL of 30 schools in the county. The analysis was done in 30 schools in Mure/ Maros County in the following schools: Europe Gimnazium, Unirea High School, Gheorghe incai, Traian Vuia, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Nicolae Blcescu, Liviu Rebreanu High-school, Serafim Duicu, Primary School nr 2, Szsz Adalbert, Szsz Adalbert Sport School, Primary School George Cobuc, Romulus Guga, Tudor Vladimirescu, Electromure, Primary School nr. 4 Apalina, Petru Maior, Lucian Blaga High School, Florea Bogdan High School, Augustin Maior, Domokos Kzmr, Alexandru Ceaueanu, Bocskai Istvn, Nicolae Blcescu-Trgu Mure /Marosvsrhely, Emila Dandea, Mircea Eliade, Mihai Viteazul, Aurel Mosora, Primary School nr. 1, and the Primary School in Iernut/ Radnt. The ethnic composition of these 30 schools is 36 per cent Hungarian and 64 per cent Romanian children.

Ethnic composition of the schools

6824, 36% 12352, 64%

RO

HU

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The number of Romanian and Hungarian teachers is directly proportional to the presence of Romanian and Hungarian children: Romanian teachers make up 53 per cent and Hungarian teachers 47 per cent of the total number of teaching personnel.

Proportion of Hungarian and Romanian teachers

651, 38% 1044, 62%

RO

HU

With regard to the ethnic composition of the administrative personnel of these 30 schools, we consider it disadvantageous to the Hungarian children, with a special emphasis on the children studying in the lower grades. The results show that 28 per cent of the administrative staff belongs to the Hungarian minority. Given the fact that there are also primary schools among those analyzed, it often happens that small children in the first and second grades (or even higher grades) do not master the Romanian language on the level where they could easily handle their issues with the schools administrative personnel. It is also important to mention that the Romanian administrative personnel do not speak Hungarian and in cases where they have a very basic knowledge of Hungarian, they prefer to use Romanian.

Ethnic Composition of the Administrative Personnel

80, 28% 207, 72%

RO

HU

The inscriptions indicating the name of the school to be found on the school buildings facade are in most of the cases monolingual (Romanian) and the names of the schools are written only in Romanian language. In the county capital of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely we found only one

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primary school that has bilingual faade inscriptions and two high schools that have bilingual names placed on their frontage. We are not counting the Hungarian schools that are operating in the same building, which have bilingual names on their facades. Only seven out of 30 schools have their name written on the frontage of the building in Hungarian, next to the Romanian inscription. We believe these schools are worth being mentioned by name for this: Szsz Adalbert School Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely, Petru Maior School Group Reghin/ Rgen, Florea Bogdan High School Reghin/ Rgen, National High School Augustin Maior Reghin/ Rgen, Domokos Kzmr Sovata/ Szovta, Alexandru Ceauseanu Reghin/ Rgen and Bocskai Istvn School Group Miercurea Nirajului/ Nyrdszereda.

Out of the total examined schools, 21 have web pages. These are all provided in Romanian while only four schools (Petru Maior School Group Reghin/ Rgen, Domokos Kzmr Sovata/ Szovta, Bocskai Istvn School Group Miercurea Nirajului/ Nyrdszereda, and Aurel Mosora) provided messages and advertised their classes in Hungarian for those parents and students.

We consider that next to the language of the schools web page and school names signs placed on the buildings faades, the internal linguistic landscape of the school is also extremely important. We also believe that the presence of bilingual Romanian-Hungarian notice boards, posters and other inscriptions located in the inner public spaces of the schools, corridors, walls, and other spaces can illustrate the symbolic position of the two languages as viewed by the school management and other state functionaries.

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All semiotic systems operate as systems of social positioning and power relationship both at the level of interpersonal relationships and at the level of struggle for hegemony amongst social groups in any society precisely because they are systems of choice and no choices are neutral in the social world. (Scollon & Scollon, 2003: 7.) The symbolic function relates to two issues, namely power and status, and identity. (Chrismi-Rinda Kotze, 2010: 28.) Out of 182 bulletin boards containing information for students, there were 17 (9 per cent) in Hungarian and 165 (91 per cent) in Romanian.

The language of the bulletin boards (informing students)

17, 9% 165, 91%

RO

HU

The situation is similar for notice boards including messages and information for the schools teachers. In our monitoring we found 103 monolingual (Romanian) (90 per cent) documents and 12 (10 per cent) bilingual public information.

The school posters placed in the corridors containing information on different issues, finalized school projects or information about the European Union, environmental issues or other subjects are mainly posted in Romanian, which means that there is relatively little to no such information provided in Hungarian. Out of the total 953 school posters, 827 (87 per cent) were in Romanian,

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while only 126 (13 per cent) were composed in a bilingual addressing the both the Romanian and Hungarian children.

The safety inscriptions placed in school corridors in monolingual format are exclusively in Romanian. Out of the total of 209 safety inscriptions we found in the examined schools, six (3 per cent) had bilingual safety inscriptions and 203 (97 per cent) of the security were formulated solely in Romanian language..

6, 3%

Safety Inscriptions

203, 97%

RO

HU

Regarding the school posters indicating information, facts, general information about the cultures of the communities coexisting in the towns examined (e.g. Romanians and Hungarians), the results are: 148 monolingual school posters related to the Romanian culture and history, and almost all (with the exception of one notice board) are written exclusively in Romanian. From the perspective of bilingualism or equaled and balanced language presence we consider that all of the information posted on the school boards/posters should be written in a bilingual format, including the ones presenting the culture of the Romanian community alongside the ones speaking about the Hungarian culture.

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In the 30 schools examined we found 148 monolingual school posters presenting the culture and history of the Romanian community while 11 present vague information about the culture and tradition of the Hungarian community. Out of these 11 posters, eight were formulated in Hungarian and three solely in Romanian. Given that these posters contain some references to the Hungarian culture, these cannot be considered as thorough and detailed as we find in the case of the posters presenting the Romanian traditions. The chart below illustrates the inscription of classrooms and administrative offices, as well as the specialized laboratories (e.g. chemistry and physics).

Similarly, in 30 schools there are 28 Romanian inscriptions on the door of the principals office, while we found a bilingual format in three schools that provided the same information in both languages.

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Language on the principals' office doors

3, 10%

28, 90%

RO

HU

In the case of teachers rooms we found 28 schools with monolingual messages while only two had bilingual inscriptions.

Inscriptions on the Teachers' Offices

2, 7%

28, 93%

RO

HU

The financial management of the schools function with the same communication, 25 of the examined schools had monolingual information while five had bilingual inscriptions.

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The charts below illustrate the rate of Romanian and bilingual inscriptions as written on the doors of the schools laboratories. While there are 22 inscriptions in Romanian on the doors of the Biology labs, five schools had bilingual inscriptions. We found similar situation in the case of Physics laboratory with 19 Romanian inscriptions while four schools had bilingual ones; The Mathematics laboratories had 20 Romanian inscriptions while four schools used bilingual lettering; the Chemistry laboratories had in 22 cases monolingual texts on their doors and three were bilingual; in the case of Geography laboratories, 19 had Romanian inscriptions and five were bilingual.

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4.4.5 Case study: Bilingualism in schools

Concluding our language landscape we would like to present a case study reflecting the findings of our research. In January 2010, a group of parents from Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely whose children study in Dacia School, Europe High School, Liviu Rebreanu High School and in the No. 2 Primary School contacted our NGO and raised the issue of the missing bilingualism in their childrens schools. The parents were ethnic Hungarians and after monitoring the school buildings they found serious deficiencies related to the presence of the Hungarian language as used within the internal and external communication of the schools. The examined spaces include the school names on the buildings facades alongside with the public spaces in the schools. As a result of this scrutiny, the parents asked the representatives of our NGO to help them in formulating a petition addressed to the schools management in which they could ask the institutions to fulfill their legal obligations toward the Hungarian children, with a special focus on the use of the Hungarian language. At this point we would like to add that the external language landscape of the schools operating in the county capital is almost similar. There is only one primary school in the town that has bilingual nameplates on its faade and two high schools with bilingual frontage. The other schools have exclusively Romanian name signs placed on their facades. The petitions (Attachment nr. 12) were signed by 200 parents and were submitted to the above-mentioned schools. The parents asked the school directors to modify the present language landscape from almost exclusively monolingual to bilingual. We would like to add that the classrooms language landscapes are not part of the complaint, given the language use within the classrooms as well as the pedagogical charts and posters are evidently Hungarian in the case of the Hungarian childrens classrooms. The monolingual features are used in the publicly used spaces. This mentioning is important given the fact that the school directors believe that the pedagogical posters as used within the classroom are fulfilling the legislative stipulations, the use of language regarding the corridors and the facades are not fixed by the law. We consider this approach a very unfortunate attitude in regard to the language rights of the Hungarian children. The schools answered the parents petitions and all the official responses focused on stating that the request of the parents was groundless and there were no explicit reactions regarding the demands of the parents. The parents submitted a list of claims such as school names, the inscriptions of the offices, warehouses, laboratories, the name of the sports center, and safety signs. (Attachment nr.12) After receiving the schools answers, the parents submitted another request asking the school directors and the managing committee of the institutions to provide an official decision with regard to the use of the Hungarian language within the above-mentioned institutions. The schools continually replied in the same manner without answering the actual request of the parents. After the second round of letters, we jointly submitted a complaint to the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD). The schools were contacted by the CNCD and their reaction was similar regarding the parents requests being groundless yet different in their arguments. Three of the four schools photographed the existing bilingual classroom signs. While not having evidence of Hungarian language use, thee schools sent pictures to CNCD showing

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the classrooms interiors though these spaces were not part of the complaint. Some schools have taken pictures of a blackboard containing Hungarian words. All the schools sent much longer letters than ever sent to the parents explaining that they entirely fulfilled their obligations regarding the public use of the Hungarian language. One of the major misunderstandings that was traced in all of the schools official viewpoints sent to the CNCD was that they considered that the Hungarian children are being positively discriminated iven that they can study in their mother tongue and having this legal provision, no other claims regarding the use of Hungarian language can be considered legitimate. The schools contacted the mayors office, which sent an official letter to the CNCD affirming that the placing of the school names signs is their legal responsibility based on the Law on Public Administration (entered into force in 2001) and they will execute this obligation as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the CNCD contacted the county school inspectorate to ask his official opinion in relation to the complaint. This Institution called the demands formulated in the complaint letters as being nationalist and chauvinistic ... that could endanger the education of the children, including the teaching of the Hungarian children too. They also stated in their answer sent to the CNCD that the demands listed in the complaint letter referring to the language landscape are totally unfounded and illegal. The steering committee of the CNCD will bring its decision on 21 January, 2011. Concluding this case study we would like to add that in some other towns and settlements the use of the two languages is well balanced and we would like to illustrate this with pictures taken in the different school interiors (e.g. monolingual as well as bilingual). Example of monolingual LL from Gimnaziul Liviu Rebranu, Trgu Mures/ Marosvsrhely. All permanent inscriptions are exclusively in Romanian:

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Public information at the main entrance of the school, exclusively in Romanian.

77

Permanent signs of different school administration rooms and laboratories, all exclusively in Romanian.

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Example of bilingual LL from Domokos Kzmr School Group in Sovata/ Szovta. Name of the school on the frontispiece of the school in both Romanian and Hungarian.

Examples from the inner bilingual LL of the school:

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4.4.6 Education of the Romanian Language

Statistical surveys indicate that 80 to 85 per cent of the Hungarians living in Romania are bilingual, meaning that they are able to conduct linguistic interactions both in Hungarian and Romanian languages (Horvth, Pntek in Tdor 2005). However, this statistic changes if it is disassembled to the regions where Hungarians form an absolute majority (Harghita/Hargita and Covasna/Kovszna) and in small settlements where Hungarians have no real-life situations to interact with Romanian persons. In those regions, the percentage of balanced bilinguals is less, and many Hungarians living there have difficulties in the acquisition of the official language of the state. The ethnic minorities study Romanian language based on the stipulation of the Education Law nr. 84 from 24 July 1995, Article 120: ..1) The Romanian language as educational subject in primary education is taught after for certain minorities specially elaborated program and course-books. In grammar school the Romanian language and literature is taught with the identical program as for the Romanian classes but with specific course-books. In high-school education the Romanian language and literature is taught with the identical program and course-books for children studying in Romanian as well as different minority languages. In relation to the education of the Romanian language, Pntek Jnos, stated, One does not have to be a linguist or educational specialist, in order to acknowledge: the pedagogy of the mother tongue has to be different from the instruction of any other language. (2007) The new Law on Education will certainly bring changes to this matter (as presented above) but based on our examinations, the new methodologies related to the education of the Romanian language provided for the ethnic minorities are not yet finalized and the textbooks are far from being produced or even drafted. Balzs Lajos (Associate Professor, Sapientia Hungarian Science University in Transylvania), Tdor Erika (Assistant Professor, Sapientia Hungarian Science University in Transylvania) and Lajos Katalin (Assistant Lecturer, Sapientia Hungarian Science University in Transylvania) have elaborated a curriculum entitled Romanian as non-native tongue. It is difficult and very complex to track and analyze the deficiencies of the present methodology as well as it is essential to consider the local characteristics (ethnic composition of the locality) yet the grades obtained as well as the results of the examinations strongly influence the future of the schools students. Given that Romanian is one of the main subjects of the examinations after 8th grade as well as after high school graduation, we believe the results obtained in these tests are indicators of the education systems fairness and equity with regard to the teaching and acquiring of the Romanian language. Our NGO made a statistical analysis based on the grades obtained at the bachelors degree in 2009 June. We analyzed the grades in Romanian language and literature of Hungarian children who studied in Hungarian classes in 10 schools in Mure/ Maros County and compared their grades with the country and county average (data taken from the www.edu.ro and the Mure/Maros County School Inspectorate).

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Grades obtained for the bachelors degree in 2009 in Romanian language and literature.

18.03%

15.09%

22.16%

9.70% 4.19% 21.78% 12.44% 12.89%

35.11%

16.00%

5 - 5,99

6 - 6,99

7 - 7,99

8 - 8,99

9 - 10

The figures from the lower section of the charts (light color): grades in Bolyai Farkas High School (exclusively Hungarian children). The figures from the upper section of the charts (dark color): Grade average in the whole country.

If we compare the results of the Hungarian children from the 10 Mure/ Maros County schools, we can clearly state that their results are lower than the countrys grade average. A total of 22 per cent of the countys average grades reach the maximum school result; between 9 and 10 while 18.03 per cent reach the second-highest grade of the countys mark average of between 88.99. Meanwhile the grades of the Hungarian children are between 6.53 and 7.53, much lower than the countys average. The second chart shows the comparison of the results of Bolyai Farkas Lyceum functioning in the county capital and being the leading Hungarian language educational institution of the town, where the Hungarian elite enroll its children. It is clearly visible that even in the case of very talented and skilled students, the results at the Romanian examinations are not reaching the countrys highest average.

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4.5 Conclusions and Recommendations

We would like to emphasize that in our view the majority of the mutual misunderstandings that presently characterizes the dynamics of the Romanian-Hungarian coexistence in the town of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely have their roots in the school education and the ambiance of the educational institutions. Family also plays a significant role although school education can be an alternative to modify discriminatory views and attitudes. Our language landscape analysis was conducted with the aim of bringing to the surface very basic yet fundamental misconceptions that are very deeply interiorized within each and every person living in this town, creation wrong perception on both Romanian and Hungarian citizens. The creation of the false impression that one group of children are worth than the others is extremely hazardous and mistaken. This has nothing to do with the concept of multiculturalism or mutual respect and it cannot lead to the development of tolerant and open-minded personalities. The omission of one language from the overall communication of the schools will further maintain the long-lasting imbalanced status quo and will not bring significant change within the interethnic relations of the region. It is also true that the present situation is a result of a long-lasting practice and both communities learned to accept it and exist with the unequal opportunities of access. We believe our work and our struggle are often questioned, as there are not many people voicing their dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. This is due to the passive attitude inherited from the previous regime and because people do not have the experience of change change that can bring satisfaction to both communities and put everyone at ease. This is why we believe there is a need for a significant change in attitude but this needs time and tools that can contribute to the transformation of the past mindset that have put up walls between people instead of constructing bridges of understanding. Furthermore, education plays a major role, as schools and teachers, as well as school principles, have a considerable influence in this process. We are aware that the implementation of the provision from the Cha rters Article 8 does not offer specific measures to the above-mentioned conflicts yet the provisions of Part II can be utilized for the development of a new understanding and approach. The provisions formulated in Part III: (3) The Parties undertake to promote, by appropriate measures, mutual understanding between all the linguistic groups of the country and in particular the inclusion of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to regional or minority languages among the objectives of education and training provided within their countries and (4) In determining their policy with regard to regional and minority languages, the Parties shall take into consideration the needs and wishes expressed by the groups which use such languages. They are encouraged to establish bodies, if necessary, for the purpose of advising the authorities on all matters pertaining to regional and minority languages. should become the basis in the work of the educational actors and decision makers. The existing problems are deeply set in the foundation of the present education system and they need to

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completely disappear step by step from the current structure to bring further significant results as regard to the provisions of Article 8 of the Charter. Introduction of a genuine intercultural education that has palpable and realistic pedagogical aims is a necessity in the schools of the examined region. At moment, intercultural education is an optional course that is not presently taught in the examined schools. We analyzed the report of the county school inspectorate regarding the cultural events, as well as projects implemented by various schools, and we have not found a single program dealing with issues such as interculturalism or multiculturalism. Naturally, there are cultural programs organized by schools but they are realized in parallel structures and they do not focus on the intercultural aspects of the institutions. The school events, if organized jointly, are monolingual, and the presentations as well as the overall accomplishment of these events are realized in Romanian. The enrollment plans prepared by the School Inspectorate as well as the choices offered to the Hungarian eighth graders should be analyzed thoroughly and the nonexistent profiles, such as agricultural education (being monolingual, with Romanian teaching classes) public administration, finance and others, must also be made available for the Hungarian children through the founding of Hungarian- language classes in high schools where these profiles exist in classes taught in Romanian. Given that the new Education Law will introduce a set of bilingual official forms such as evaluation forms, diploma, and other relevant documents, the introduction and proper implementation of these should be monitored and assessed in a viable and strategic manner, including the continuous grassroots advice coming from the NGO field. The history and the geography books as stipulated in the new Education Law must be immediately introduced within the education of the minority communities and in order to successfully implement this the Hungarian politicians need to make sure that their work will not stop at the level of lobbying for the new law, but the provision of the necessary human and financial resources needed for its implementation should also be part of their strategy. The introduction of the new school textbooks can not be considered a bottom-up action. It has to be implemented with a top-down approach. Therefore, the maximum involvement of the Ministry of Education is imperative and much needed. The same applies to the introduction of the new Romanian textbooks as stipulated in the new Education Law. It is likely possible that the preparation and implementation of the new methodology can take time and effort. As a result, it is important that the necessary strategy and the related work plan should be completed in the very near future. The schools language landscapes need to be transformed without delay and in a complete and accurate manner. We refer to the schools where the language landscape is monolingual at present. In order to accomplish this there must be a consensus among the decision makers (e.g. mayors offices in the case of the school names signs, the school inspectorate, school directors, and the relevant representatives of the Ministry of Education) who must work together to solve this issue as soon as possible.

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It is also imperative to change the present practice regarding the vocational education system. Therefore, we recommend a complete revision and modification of the vocational education system focusing on the employment of Hungarian personnel in the case of classes taught to Hungarian students. The same employment policy must be applied in the case of the optional courses within the primary educational institutions. Given that the names of the schools within the town of Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely are solely chosen from the representative of the Romanian culture and there is not a single primary school in the town (out of 15) that would be named after a Hungarian person, we are asking that this become part of the above mentioned bilingualism strategy that needs to be urgently prepared and implemented by the relevant representative of the state institutions enumerated above. We consider that our recommendations are realistic and in accordance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and we sincerely hope that all the relevant actors and decision makers will take them into consideration.

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Reference List
Androniceanu Armenia, Nastase Bogdan. 2009. Civil Servants in the Romanian Public Administration from the Legal and Managerial Point of View Public Administration and Public Management Department, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania. IN NISPAcee, The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe, Volume XVI No. 3 Summer http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/nispacee/unpan035376.pdf Downloaded: 14 December 2009 Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Second Opinion on Romania, adopted on 24 November 2005, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/minorities/3_FCNMdocs/PDF_2nd_OP_Romania_en.pdf (Accessed: 3 January 2011) Ben, Attila and Pntek, Jnos. 2003. Nyelvi jogok Romniban [Language Rights in Romania]. Bodolai Gyngyi. 22 June 2010. Szakoktats anyanyelven?/Vocational education in mother tongue? Npjsg/ The newspaper of the people. http://www.hhrf.org/nepujsag/10jun/10nu0622t.htm Accessed: September 22 2010 In Ndor Orsolya and Szarka Lszl (ed): Nyelvi Jogok, Kissebbsgek, Nyelvpolitika KeletKzp Eurpban [Language Rights, Minorities, Language Politics in Eastern-Central Europe]. Budapest: Academic Press. Pp.123-148. Ben-Rafael, Eliezer and Shohamy, Elana. Framing the Issue: LL Research and Implications to SLA. http://www.vc.ehu.es/eurosla2004/program/panel1.html Accessed: 9 April 2009 Chrismi-Rinda Kotze: The Linguistic Landscape of Rural South Africa after 1994: A Case Study of Philippolis, in the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies, Sign Language and Language Practice at the University of the Free State, January 2010, Accessed: 14 January 2011 Cserg, Zsuzsa. 2007. Talk of the Nation. Language Conflict in Romania and Slovakia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. George Schpflin-Hugh Poulton: Romania Ethnic Hungarians, Minority Rights, Expedite Graphic Limited Murray House, 3 Vandon Street, London, SW1H OAG 1990 Horvth, Istvn. 2003. Az erdlyi magyarok ktnyelvsge: nyelvments s integrci kztt? [The bilingualism of Hungarians in Transylvania: between language salvation and integration?]. In Erdlyi Trsadalom [Transylvanian Society] Nr1.1:723. Hornberger, Nancy H. 1998. Language Policy, Language Education, Language Rights: Indigenous, Immigrant and International Perspectives. In Language in Society, Vol. 27,

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No. 4:439-458. Cambridge University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4168870 (Accessed: 13 March 2009) Minority Rights Group, Europe MRG Directory > Romania > Romania Overview; http://www.minorityrights.org/3521/romania/romania-overview.html, Accessed: 10 January 2011. Pntek Jnos. 2007. Nyelvoktatss vlik a romn nyelv tantsa, vagy megmarad eredmnytelen "anyanyelv-pedagginak"? [Will the teaching of Romanian language become the instruction of the language itself or will it remain an inefficient mother tongue pedagogy?] Published in Polgri letben [Civic Life] August 2007, 17-23, IV nr. 33 Tdor Erika Mria. 2005. A kdvlts s az asszimetrikus ktnyelvsg nyelvpedaggiai sszefggsei [The language pedagogy relation between code switching and unbalanced bilingualism] Published in Magyar Pedaggia [Hungarian Pedagogy] MAGYAR PEDAGGIA 105. Nr. 1. pp. 4158. VOCATIONAL TRAINING NR. 11 EUROPEAN JOURNAL http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/etv/Upload/Information_resources/Bookshop/128/11_en_keydata _ro.pdf Accessed 27 October 2010 Wojciech Kostecki: Lessons from Romania, Prevention of Ethnic Conflict, Berghof Occasional Paper No. 19, August 2002, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, http://www.berghof-conflictresearch.org/documents/publications/boc19e.pdf Accessed: 14 January 2011

List of Documents
Constitution of Romania. http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?den=act2_1&par1=1#t1c0s0a1 (Accessed: 14 February 2009) European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Strasbourg, 5.XI.1992 http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/148.htm (Accessed: 14 February 2009) Legea nr. 282/ 2007 pentru ratificarea Cartei europene a limbilor regionale sau minoritare n Romnia [Law nr. 282/2007 for the ratification of European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages] Published in Monitorul Oficial nr. 752 from 6 November 2009, www.dri.gov.ro/documents/b1-ratificare.pdf (Accessed: 12 November 2009) Hotarare nr. 1.206 din 27 noiembrie 2001 Legata de Legea administratiei publice locale nr. 215/2001 [Decision nr. 1.206 from 27 November 2001 regarding the law of local public administration nr. 215/2001]. Emitted by the Romanian Govern. Published in Monitorul Oficial nr. 781 from 7 December 2001 http://www.dri.gov.ro/documents/hgper cent201206.pdf (Accessed: 14 February 2009)

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Lege nr. 84 din 24 iulie 1995 republicat si rectualizat, Legea nvtmntului actualizat pana la data de 15 iunie [2007 Education law nr. 84 from 24 July 1995 republished and updated until 15 June 2007]. Emitted by the Romanian Parliament. http://www.dri.gov.ro/documents/LEGE_nr_per cent2084.pdf (Accessed: 14 February 2009) Official Census Data, 2002. http://recensamant.referinte.transindex.ro/ (Accessed: 25 January 2009)

ROMANIA, Public Administration, Country Profile. December 2003i. Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) United Nations. http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan023222.pdf Downloaded 12 10 2009 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml, Accessed: 6 May 2009

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ATTACHMENTS

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ATTACHMENT NR. 1 ROMNIA JUDETUL MURES CONSILIUL LOCAL MUNICIPAL TRGU MURES
H O T A R R E A nr. 371 din 25 octombrie 2007

privind unele masuri n domeniul denumirii strazilor si pietelor din municipiul Trgu Mures

Consiliul local al municipiului Trgu Mures, ntrunit n sedinta ordinara de lucru, Vaznd Expunerea de motive a viceprimarului municipiului Trgu Mures, dl. dr. Bakos Levente, nr. 53 din 19 octombrie 2007, n temeiul prevederilor art. 36, alin. (1), (2), lit.e, alin. (5), lit. l si art. 115, alin. (1), lit. b, din Legea nr. 215/2001 privind administratia publica locala, republicata, hotaraste: Art. 1. Se ia act de lista nominala actualizata cu denumirile strazilor si pietelor din municipiul Trgu Mures n ce priveste cuantumul, trama stradala si denumirea lingvistica, conform anexei, care face parte integranta din prezenta hotarre. Art. 2. Inscriptionarea denumirilor din lista de la art. 1 se va efectua n conditiile legii, n baza unei hotarri al Consiliului local. Art. 3. ncepnd cu data intrarii n vigoare a prezentei, autoritatea publica executiva va informa cetatenii, institutiile publice, agentii economici si alte institutii si unitati despre lista actualizata, conform anexei de la art. 1, anexa care are caracter constatativ si nu implica modificarea niciunui act administrativ n vigoare de atribuire sau schimbare de denumire. Art. 4. Cu ducerea la ndeplinire a prevederilor prezentei hotarri se ncredinteaza dl. viceprimar dr. Bakos Levente, prin Compartimentul Arhitect Sef, Directia economica si Administratia Domeniului Public.

Presedinte de sedinta sing. Pop Aurel Mircea Contrasemneaza Secretarul Mures Cioban Maria municipiului Trgu

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ATTACHMENT NR. 2 Questionnaire related to the use of Hungarian language within the local councils/mayors offices Location: Mure/Maros County 1. The composition of the local council: Number of councilors whose mother tongue is Hungarian: Number of councilors whose mother tongue is Romanian:

2. Have you heard that bilingual Romanian/ Hungarian official forms were taken in use in Romania, for their usage with local administration or other decentralized Institutions, and their usage is enabled by the Laws and the Constitution of Romania? (Please read the letter of Mark Bla, the President of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) in which he draws attention to these, and encourages the employees of mayors offices to use these printed forms.) YES NO 3. Did your mayors office introduce the usage of the above-mentioned forms? YES NO 4. If the answer to the question above is YES, please indicate the type of these forms, and mention how many forms were registered in your office using Hungarian language? TYPE OF PRINTED FORM (enlist the printed forms type, if needed continue the list) .. .. .. .. The number of Hungarian forms registered in 2009: The number of Hungarian applications/requests: 5. Which language is used to inform the local residents about the topics and issues of the local councils agenda? ROMANIAN HUNGARIAN 6. Which language is used to formulate the invitation for the members of the local council? ROMANIAN HUNGARIAN 7. In which language do the local councilors obtain the draft decisions submitted to the councilboard? 90

ROMANIAN HUNGARIAN 8. In which language are the local councils minutes written? ROMANIAN HUNGARIAN 9. Which language is used to inform the residents about the councils decisions? ROMANIAN HUNGARIAN 10. In which language are the council-boards meetings held? Exclusively in Romanian Exclusively in Hungarian Mixed (In this case please be specific and explain the situations where the HU language is used, two or three sentences are not relevant)

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ATTACHMENT NR. 3

92

ATTACHMENT NR. 4

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ATTACHMENT NR. 5

94

ATTACHMENT NR. 6

95

ATTACHMENT NR. 7

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II.

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ATTACHMENT NR. 8

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ATTACHMENT NR. 9

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ATTACHMENT NR. 10

Cover letter to the project clerk, signed by Mr. Mark Bla, President of the Democratic Alliance of the Hungarians in Romania Hungarian forms in local administration and in de-concentrated institutions! The constitution of Romania guarrantees the right for national minorities to use their mother tongue during their written or oral contacts with local administration entities and deconcentrated institutions. The law of Local Administration of 2001 grants this right for those national communities that form at least 20% of a given locality. The European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, as adopted also by the Romanian Parliament on 9 October 2007, and published in the Official Monitor on 9 January 2008 also regulates the usage of minority languages in a detailed and minority-friendly way. Oral use of the Hungarian language in local administration offices is quite widespread, although mostly in those places where Hungarians form the majority. On the other hand, Hungarians of Transylvania barely use their right to use their mother tongue in written communications. One reason for this is a lack of forms in the Hungarian language. The "Clerk project of the Kolozsvr/ Cluj Napoca-based, government-funded Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities intends to facilitate the usage of Hungarian as an official language. As a first step, the staff of the Institute made available, the forms most often used during local administration procedures in bilingual form. The enclosed CD contains 94, most often used forms in two languages (Romanian and Hungarian). They are grouped according to their contents in 13 chapters, and cover a broad spectrum of the local administration's duties. The ease of use is enabled by an interactive user interface. The forms are of informative nature, there content is free for modifications. Can be downloaded from the Institute for Research on National Minorities' website (www.ispmn.gov.ro/ugyintezo) or from the DAHR's web site (www.rmdsz.ro). In case of questions use the 0040-364-116261 phone number or office@ispmn.gov.ro e-mail address. I kindly ask you, mayors, vice-mayors, local counselors elected by the Hungarian community of Transylvania to use these forms. Make them accessible in the offices, and as e-forms on the local council's web site. Let's use our rights, as enabled by the laws! You, representatives of the community on the local level, may contribute the most this time.

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ATTACHMENT NR. 11

Primary schools Urban Area

LOCALITATE

UNITATE DE NVMNT
Gimnaziul Serafim Duicu Tg,Mure Gimnaziul de stat "George Cobuc" Tg.Mure coala General Nr.2 Tg,Mure Gimnaziul Europa Tg,Mure Gimnaziul "Mihai Viteazu" Tg.Mure coala General Nr.7 Tg,Mure Gimnaziul Al. Ioan Cuza Tg,Mure

DENUMIREA VECHE ADRESA

coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure Nr.1 Str Hunedoarei Nr.38 Nr.3 Str Moldovei Nr.30 Str Gheorghe Doja Nr.11 Nr.4 Str Horea Nr.19 Nr.5 Str Muncii Nr.17 Str 22 Decembrie Nr .49 Nr.8 Str Baraganului Nr.2 B Nr.10 Str Panselutelor Nr.6 Nr.13 Str Ialomitei Nr.2 Str T. Vladimirescu Nr.122 Str Bd 1848 Nr.57 Str Aleea Carpati Nr.1 Str Surianu Nr.5 Nr.18 Str Pandurilor Nr.120 Nr.20 Str Cutezantei Nr.51 Nr.1 Str Morii Nr.28 Nr.2 Str 6 Martie Nr.6 Nr.3 Str Gh Gheorghiu Dej Nr. 56 Nr.4 Str Noua Nr.16 Nr.5 Str Ana Ipatescu Nr.14 Str Dumbravei Nr.27 Str Crizantemelor Nr.20 Nr.1 Str Mihai Viteazul Nr.85 Nr.2 Str Vinatorilor Nr.27 Str Garii Nr.20 Str Castelului Nr.35 Nr.5 Str Scolii Nr.3 Nr.6 Str Pomilor Nr.16

TIRGU MURE

Gimnaziul Dacia Tg,Mure Gimnaziul Nicolae Balcescu Tg,Mure coala General Nr.14 Tg,Mure coala General Nr.15 Tg,Mure coala General Nr.16 Tg,Mure coala General Nr.17 Tg,Mure Gimnaziul de stat "Romulus Guga" Tg.Mure Gimnaziul "Tudor Vladimirescu" Tg.Mure coala General Radu Popa Sighioara Gimnaziul de stat "Aurel Mosora" Sighioara Gimnaziul de stat "Miron Neagu" Sighioara

SIGHIOARA

Gimnaziul "Victor Jinga" Sighioara Gimnaziul de stat "Octavian Goga" Sighioara coala General Nr.6 Sighioara Gimnaziul de stat "Zaharia Boiu" Sighioara Gimnaziul de stat "Virgil Oniiu" Reghin Gimnaziul de stat "Alexandru Ceuianu" Reghin

coala General Tg,Mure coala General Tg,Mure coala General Sighioara coala General Sighioara coala General Sighioara coala General Sighioara coala General Sighioara

coala Reghin coala Reghin

General General

REGHIN

Grup colar Petru Maior Reghin coala General Nr.4 Reghin Gimnaziul de stat "Augustin Maior" Reghin Gimnaziul de stat "Florea Bogdan" Reghin

coala Reghin coala Reghin

General General

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coala General Nr.3 Trnveni Gimnaziul "Avram Iancu" Trnveni

TRNVENI

Gimnaziul "Traian" Trnveni Gimnaziul" Vasile Moldovan" Trnveni Gimnaziul de stat Decebal Bobohalma coala General Nr.1 Sovata coala General Nr.2 Sovata coala General Nr.1 Ludu coala General "Ioan Vladuiu" Ludu coala General Iernut coala General Miercurea Nirajului

coala General Trnveni coala General Trnveni coala General Trnveni

Str 11 Iunie Nr.12 Nr.1 Str Soimilor Nr.27 Nr.4 Str Republicii Nr.92 Nr.2 Str Fabricii Nr.4

SOVATA LUDU IERNUT MIERCUREA NIRAJULUI

Str Scolii Nr.117 Str Principala Nr.196 Str Principala Nr.54 Str Republicii Nr.57 coala General Nr.2 Ludus Str Crinului Nr.2 Str Mihai Eminescu Nr.3 Str Teilor Nr.5

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ATTACHMENT NR. 12 Primary Schools Rural area

Nr. crt.

Localitatea Acari Admu Albeti Aluni Apold Ainti Bgaciu Band Bahnea Bla Blueri Bato Beica de Jos Bichi Bogata Brncoveneti Breaza Ceuau de Cmpie Cheani Chiheriu de Jos Coroisnmrti n Cozma Crciuneti Crieti Cristeti Cucerdea Cuci Dane Deda Eremitu Ernei Fntnele Frgu Gleti Gneti

4.6

coala

5 Adres a
Str Principala Nr.289 Str Livezilor Nr.79 Str Lunga Nr.119 Str Principala Nr.659 Str Principala Nr.1 Str Principala Nr.208 Str Principala Nr.22 Str.Pacii Nr.4 Str Republicii Nr.53 Str Scolii Nr.87 Str Principala Nr.274 Str Principala Nr.115 Str Principala Nr.66 Str Principala Nr.125 Str Principala Nr.133 Str Principala Nr.254 Str Scolii Nr.256 Str Principala Nr.112 Str Ritului Nr.116 Str Principala Nr.61 Str Principala Nr.46 Str Principala Nr.49 Str Principala Nr.246 Str Principala Nr.127 Str Scolii Nr.309 Str Scolii Nr.58 Str Principala Nr.77 Str Principala Nr.119 Str Principala Nr.422 Str Scolii Nr.243 Str Principala Nr.147 Str Principala Nr.263 Str Principala Nr.213 Str Principala Nr.75 Str Principala Nr.248

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII ACATARI SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII ADAMUS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII ALBESTI SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII ALUNIS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII APOLD SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII ATINTIS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BAGACIU LICEUL TEORETIC BAND SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BAHNEA SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BALA SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BALAUSERI SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BATOS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BEICA DE JOS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BICHIS SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BOGATA SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BRNCOVENESTI SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII BREAZA SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII CEUASU DE CMPIE SCOALA GENERALA CLASELE I - VIII CHETANI Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Chiheru De Jos

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Coroisinmartin

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Cozma Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Nr 01 Craciunesti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Craiesti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Cristesti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Cucerdea Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Cuci Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Danes Grup Scolar "Vasile Netea" Deda Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Eremitu Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Ernei Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Fantinele Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Faragau Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Galesti Scoala Generala Fogorosi Samuel Ganesti

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36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

Gheorghe Doja Ghindari Glodeni Gorneti Grebeniu de Cmpie Gurghiu Hodac Hodoa Ibneti Iclnzel Ideciu de Jos Livezeni Lunca Lunca Bradului Mgherani Mica Miheu de Cmpie Nade Neaua Ogra Pnet Papiu Ilarian Psreni Petelea Pogceaua Rciu Rstolia Ruii Muni Sncraiu de Mure Sngeorgiu de Mure Snger Snpaul Snpetru de Cmpie Sntana de Mure Saschiz ulia incai Solovstru

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Gheorghe Doja Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Ghindari Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Glodeni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Gornesti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Grebenisu De Cimpie

Str Principala Nr.352 Str Socad Nr.454 Str Principala Nr.238 Str Principala Nr.432 Str Principala Nr.100 Str Republicii Nr.2 Str Principala Nr.39 Str Principala Nr.105 Str Principala Nr.80 Str Principala Nr.258 Str Principala Nr.233 Str Principala Nr.214a Str Principala Nr.25 Str Garii Nr.107 Str Principala Nr.363 Str Scolii Nr.149 Str Mihai Nr.6 Eminescu

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Gurghiu Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Hodac Scoala Generala Petres Kalman Sambrias Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Ibanesti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Iclanzel Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Ideciu De Jos Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Livezeni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Lunca Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Lunca Bradului Scoala Generala Clasele I Viii Magherani Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Deaj Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Mihesu De Cimpie

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Nades Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Neaua Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Ogra Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Panet Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Papiu Ilarian Scoala Generala Clasele I Viii Pasareni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Petelea Scoala Generala Clasele I Viii Pogaceaua Gimnaziu De Stat Gheorghe incai Raciu Scoala Generala Clasele I Viii Rastolita Scoala Generala Clasele I-Viii Rusii Munti Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Sancraiu De Mures

Str Principala Nr.385 Str Principala Nr.20 Str Principala Nr.217 Str Principala Nr.46 Str Principala Nr.115 Str Principala Nr.99 Str Principala Nr.250 Str Principala Nr.43 Str Gh. incai Nr.100 Str Principala Nr.105 Str Principala Nr.162 Str Principala Nr.178 Str Tofalu Nr.610 Str Scolii Nr.10 Str Principala Nr.106 Str Principala Nr.76 Str Suseni Nr.81 Str Principala Nr.534 Str Principala Nr.3201 Str Principala Nr.152 Str Bisericii Nr.8

SCOALA GENERALA "C-Tin Romanu Vivu"

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Sanger Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Sanpaul Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Sanpetru De Campie

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii "Ion Chinezu"

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Saschiz Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Saulia Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Sincai Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Solovastru

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74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

Stnceni Suplac Suseni Tureni Ungheni Valea Larg Vntori Vrgata Vtava Veca Viioara Voivodeni Zagr Zau de Cmpie Bereni Marculeni

Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Stinceni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Suplac Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Suseni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Taureni Scoala Generala Clasele Emil Drgan Ungheni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Valea Larga Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Vanatori Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Vargata Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Vatava Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Vetca Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Viisoara Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Voivodeni Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Zagar Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Zau De Cimpie Scoala Generala Clasele I - Viii Bereni

Str Principala Nr.75 Str Principala Nr.258 Str Principala Nr.75 Str Principala Nr.121 Str Principala Nr.107 Str Principala Nr.88 Str Principala Nr.456 Str Principala Nr.66 Str Principala Nr.15 Str Principala Nr.236 Str Principala Nr.123 Str Principala Nr.96 Str Horia Nr.43 Str Republicii Nr.58

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ATTACHMENT NR. 13 High Schools Mure/ Maros County

1. Colegiul Naional "Al. Papiu Il." 2. Colegiul Naional "Unirea" 3. Liceul Teoretic "Bolyai Farkas" 4. Liceul de Art 5. Liceul cu Program Sportiv 6. Liceul Pedagogic "M. Eminescu" 7. Liceul Teologic Reformat 8. Grupul colar Ind. "Avram Iancu" 9. Grupul colar "Gh. Marinescu" 10. Grupul colar "Gh. Sincai"
Tg. Mure

11. Grupul colar C-tin Brncui 12. Grupul colar "Electromures" 13. Grupul colar de Chimie Ind. 14. Grupul colar "Ion Vlasiu" 15. Grupul colar "Traian Vuia" 16. Colegiul Agricol Traian Savulescu 17. Colegiul Economic Transilvania 18. Grupul colar "Aurel Persu" 19. Grupul colar de Industrie Uoar 20. Liceul Teoretic "Joseph Haltrich" 21. Colegiul Naional "Mircea Eliade" 22. Grupul colar Agricol 23. Grupul colar "Lucian Blaga" 24. Grupul colar "Petru Maior" 25. Grupul colar Agricol 26. Colegiul Tehnic T-veni 27. Liceul Teoretic Andrei Barsianu 28. c.de arte i meserii."C.Brncui" 29. Grupul colar Industrial 30. Grupul colar Forestier 31. Grupul colar 32. Grupul colar 33. Grupul colar 34. Grupul colar 35. Grupul colar 36. Grupul c. "V. Netea" 37. Grupul colar Agricol 38. Colegiul Silvic

roman str. Mihai Viteazul nr. 17, tel. 227262 , fax.212838 str. Bolyai nr. 3, tel.fax. 264300 str. Revoluiei nr. 9, tel.fax. 211187 / 210401 str. Victor Babe nr. 11, tel. 214583 , fax.212135 str. Al. Papiu Ilarian nr. 3, tel. 250383, fax.250382 str. Bolyai nr. 3, tel.fax. 264300 str. Gh. Doja nr. 13, tel.26.07.09., fax.268622 roman str. urianu nr. 1, tel.266056 fax.251608 sincaitgm@yahoo.com str. Victor Babe nr. 11, tel.213319/tel.Cont.: 214758 str. Livezeni nr. 5, tel.fax. 254961 skalman@fx.ro str. Gh. Doja nr. 250, tel.fax. 252807 str. Ghe. Marinescu nr. 62, tel. 215011, fax.218310 str. Gh. Doja nr. 102, tel.25.36.61. fax. 253787 roman roman roman r r str. 1 Decembrie 1918 nr. 31, tel. fax.771375 r str. Vntorilor nr. 27, tel. 521116, fax. 512834 str. Grii nr. 20, tel. 512706/512624 fax.513382 r str. Republicii nr. 30, tel. 446003 str. Republicii nr. 15, tel. 446149, fax.446150 r str. Crinului nr. 2, tel. 411366, fax.413450 str. Principal nr. 34, tel. 570219, fax. 577719 r str. Pcii nr. 4, tel. 428416 str. Nirajului nr. 3, tel. 576057 str. Unirii nr. 2, tel. 578306 str. Republicii nr. 98, tel. 421262, fax.421164 r r r

Sighioara

Reghin

Trnveni Ludu Sovata Iernut Band M. Nirajului S. de Pdure Srmau Deda D-vioara Gurghiu

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ATTACHMENT NR. 14

Bilingualism language survey School's name :

N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Description of the entries Number of pupils Number of teachers Director/principal Administrative staff From these working at the Secretariat Front name-board Secretariat Director's/principal's office Teacher's room Finance department Classrooms Sport room Biology lab Physics lab Mathematics lab Chemistry lab Geography lab Other labs (please name them) English, informatics, history, psychology Hungarian language and literature lab Romanian language and literature lab Doorman Canteen Storeroom Other boards (Please write them down) Commemorative boards Web site School shop (food and drinks) RO HU

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School's name :
N 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Description of the entries Didactical wall newspapers (cultural, environmental protection, EU, board of merit, etc.) Temporary ads Posters Security inscriptions (No smoking allowed, attention stairs, school regulations, etc.) Teacher's advertising board Pupil's advertising board Romanian history or culture related wallpapers Hungarian history or culture related wallpapers Biology lab Physics lab Mathematics lab Chemistry lab Geography lab Other labs (please name them) history, psychology, English, informatics, etc. Canteen (price list) Other (Please write them down) Commemorative boards Totally Observations: Optional courses taught in Romanian in Hungarian classes. Other remarks related to the use of the Hungarian language within the institution. R H

Filling guide 1 to 5: The number of personel. 6 to 26 : Inscription of the offices, classrooms etc. 27 to 34: Posters, Ads, Public Interest information, other communication. 35 to 42: Inscroption of the labs.

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ATTACHMENT NR 15

Dear Principal We, the undersigned, parents of students of the name of the schoolschool, hereby petition the school management: Our petition was made because we are convinced that our childrens mother tongue, the Hungarian language, is extremely important toward the proper development of our children. We know that deficiencies in this matter would have a harmful effect on the positive development of their personalities, and accumulated negative experiences would follow them through their entire lives. In order to ensure the development of healthy personality traits in our children, we request that you post Hungarian-language communication alongside the Romanian in the XXX school. We believe that the promotion in the schools of both multiculturalism and multilingualism in the diverse European Union -- enriches the personality of the children, and under the same token it strengthens the development of tolerance and mutual respect in the members of both communities (Romanian and Hungarian). Based on a survey made by us, the following is a list of locations, signs, and advertisements where there is no Hungarian-language information to be found. We request that you post Hungarian or bilingual inscriptions to the following locations: Facade panels and inscriptions Classrooms Laboratories Offices, warehouses, workshops Gym Safety Signs Notice-boards or bulletin boards

These request are made pursuant to the Local Administration Act nr. 2001/215 applicable to public institutions and pursuant to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ratified by Romania in accordance with its principles and objectives, under the Act nr. 2007/282. At the same time, we ask that all information of public interest even if temporary in nature, be posted in the Hungarian language as well, given the Romanian and Hungarian languages being languages of education in your school, and therefore, Hungarian-speaking children also have the right to have access to all information in their mother tongue. Please post bilingual communication in the same size and color both in Hungarian and Romanian languages. 109

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that signatories to this petition believe that because of the deficiencies noted, equal opportunities are not provided, and this negatively affects the healthy personality development of Hungarian children. Should you believe that Hungarian-language communications could be hampered by lack of financial funds, please use the school funds for this purpose to which Hungarian parents are also contributing. If support for such a resolution is required, we would like to offer our support to the school management. 11 January 2010, Marosvsrhely/ Trgu Mure Constitution of Romania, Article 120, Paragraph 2: In those administrative-territorial units in which the number of citizens belonging to national minorities have a significant weight, the use of that national minority language is ensured both in written and in oral relations with the local government authorities and with the decentralized public services; as per the conditions provided by the organic law. Decision nr. 1.206 from 27 November 2001 regarding the Law of Local Public Administration nr. 215/2001, Paragraph 19, Article 2, that states: Authorities of public and local administrations, public institutions subordinated to them as well as decentralized public services, ensure the use of mother tongue in their relationships with national minorities, in those administrative-territorial units in which the percentage of citizens belonging to national minorities are over 20%; all according to the Constitution, the present law and the international treaties to which Romania is party. Article 2, paragraph (2) and Article 8, paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) from the GD no. 1206/2001: In relations with local public administrative authorities, citizens that belong to a certain national minority, and form more than 20 per cent in a territorial-administrative district, have the right to let be known in mother tongue, the agenda of local or county council meetings, and the decisions accepted by these as well. European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages adopted by the Act No. 2007/282 Part II Objectives and principles pursued in accordance with Article 2, paragraph 1 Article 7 Objectives and principles: 1. In respect of regional or minority languages, within the territories in which such languages are used and according to the situation of each language, the Parties shall base their policies, legislation and practice on the following objectives and principles: 110

1. the recognition of the regional or minority languages as an expression of cultural wealth; 2. the respect of the geographical area of each regional or minority language in order to ensure that existing or new administrative divisions do not constitute an obstacle to the promotion of the regional or minority language in question; 3. the need for resolute action to promote regional or minority languages in order to safeguard them; 4. the facilitation and/or encouragement of the use of regional or minority languages, in speech and writing, in public and private life; 5. the maintenance and development of links, in the fields covered by this Charter, between groups using a regional or minority language and other groups in the State employing a language used in identical or similar form, as well as the establishment of cultural relations with other groups in the State using different languages; 6. the provision of appropriate forms and means for the teaching and study of regional or minority languages at all appropriate stages; 7. the provision of facilities enabling non-speakers of a regional or minority language living in the area where it is used to learn it if they so desire; 8. the promotion of study and research on regional or minority languages at universities or equivalent institutions; 9. the promotion of appropriate types of transnational exchanges, in the fields covered by this Charter, for regional or minority languages used in identical or similar form in two or more States. 2. The Parties undertake to eliminate, if they have not yet done so, any unjustified distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference relating to the use of a regional or minority language and intended to discourage or endanger the maintenance or development of it. The adoption of special measures in favor of regional or minority languages aimed at promoting equality between the users of these languages and the rest of the population or which take due account of their specific conditions is not considered to be an act of discrimination against the users of more widely-used languages.

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The Civic Engagement Movement/CEMO was founded in 2007 by a group of intellectuals and activists who are firmly convinced there is a great need to educate, advocate and sustain the greater public to bring significant change in the present life of the society. The mission of CEMO is to actively and effectively contribute to the encouragement and increase of a rights-based attitude within the society through advocacy, community development, and civic education. CEMO is an NGO founded to promote civic engagement, as well as an informed and active citizenship with a focus on solidarity, tolerance and diversity and greater participation in democracy and society through a combination of public awareness projects. These public awareness projects include: advocacy projects, civic education, community development projects, research, discussions, and debates. The NGO encourages increased democratic participation by all the community members with a special emphasis on the young generation through the education of active citizenship and civic engagement. As mentioned above, the NGO was founded by a group of intellectuals with extensive experience acquired in the NGO field, and who also have extensive professional experience. Among the founders are human rights lawyers, professional trainers, and advocacy experts. CEMO works toward its mission through three major approaches: Training and Education, Advocacy, and Online Activism. The organization developed its Training and Education Program with the aim to promote civic education and participation. We are planning to achieve our goal by building the capacity of citizens through formal and informal education to develop the confidence, skills, and knowledge needed to engage in civil society activities. Our Education programs include Civic Education and Education for Active Citizenship in schools, as well as education and training initiatives for adults. CEMO organized several trainings and series of trainings alongside the continuous Human Rights Education activities that have been implemented in several schools within Trgu Mure/ Marosvsrhely. CEMO organized a number of international trainings covering the issues of active civic participation, volunteering, and intercultural dialogue, as well as conflict resolution within multi-ethnic communities. The Advocacy Program is designed to complement our Training Education Program and make our overall objective become achievable and realistic. CEMO is planning to advocate for active participation of people with the aim to change peoples present attitudes and make them feel more responsible for what is happening in their life and around them. Our Advocacy Program includes various activities such as Advocacy Campaigns, Public Awareness Campaigns, Public Forums, and last but not least, Case Studies and Monitoring.

112