Romania

 
Article 13 of the 1991 Constitution states that “In Romania, the official language is Romanian”.

Taking its inspiration from French legislation, a law concerning the use of the Romanian language in public places and institutions was adopted on 12 November 2004. This law was put forward in a context marked by:

• the introduction of a large number of Anglicisms into the Romanian language and the use of such Anglicisms in domains such as advertising and communication;
• the recurrent problem of three regions, Harghita, Covasna and Mureş, which are inhabited mainly by Magyars calling for an autonomous status for their region. Most public notices in these regions are in Hungarian only.

The law of 12 November 2004 made it compulsory for all texts of public interest to be translated or adapted into Romanian. It also made it compulsory to provide a Romanian translation of all instructions and explanations in a foreign language on products sold in Romania. The latter is essentially a point of consumer protection.

In contrast, the law says nothing about what language scientific works should be submitted or published in.

There is no body (governmental structure, agency, promotional organisation) with responsibility for applying the legislation or controlling its implementation.

 
No legal provisions concerning the linguistic integration of migrants have as yet been planned for Romania. Nor are there any plans to implement specific language training provisions for these populations.

 
Legal and institutional framework

The Constitution guarantees the right of national minorities to be able to learn their native language and receive instruction in their language. It specifies that the way in which these rights can be exercised is laid down by law.

The laws on teaching and local authorities provide that, for each region, units, classes or training programmes should be organised or run to teach Romanian and, where necessary, the languages of minority nationals. Where this is not possible, schooling in the native language should be provided as close as possible to home.

If the number of inhabitants belonging to a minority is greater than 20% of the total number of inhabitants in the area where the minority national lives, the minority national may contact local authorities in either Romanian or their native language. Decisions taken by local authorities may be formulated in a minority language. Public-facing employees of local authorities must be able to understand the minority language spoken in their area.

The minority languages are Armenian, Bulgarian, Czech, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Slovakian, Turkish, Ukrainian and Romani.

‘Native language’ baccalaureates are available in Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, Slovakian, Turkish and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

Higher level training can be offered partially in Hungarian and partially in German.

 A ‘Department for Interethnic Relations’ within the Romanian Government and managed by a Secretary of State has responsibility for ensuring that minority nationals in Romania are able to access their rights, for financing interethnic projects and for fighting against intolerance.

 Although the Romanian Government signed the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages in 1995, it has still not been ratified by Parliament. The main point of contention is the status of the Hungarian language faced with provisions in favour of minority national languages.

 
In addition to minority (or ‘maternal’, as the Romanians call them) languages, which benefit from special teaching status, the Romanian Ministry of Educations requires that two modern foreign languages are taught in school.

The first language must be taught from the third class.

The second language must be taught from the second class.

 
Although the Romanian authorities demonstrate a desire to respect the languages of national minorities within their country, the existence of a group within the Magyar minority which is calling for regional autonomy has sparked tensions which, in an area where sensitivities are very strong, are far from being resolved.

 In addition, it should be noted that there is a very big difference between legal provisions and the reality of how many people learn Romani, which has between 1,800,000 and 2,500,000 speakers. The social and economic marginalisation of the Roma population and their low level of literacy means that Romani is a spoken language which is very rarely taught.

(2009)