On Tuesday, 30 June, the Slovak Parliament passed the amendment of the Slovak Language Law. The new version will enter in force in September 2009. Members from the Party of the Hungarian Coalition expressed their conviction that the new law will hinder the enforcement of the linguistic rights of national minorities.

A new survey launched in Galicia indicates that 50.3% of the inhabitants of Galicia have the Galician language as their mother tongue. Also, the survey shows that only 3% of those living in Galicia consider themselves as Spanish only.

Last Saturday night two young acts were chosen to represent the Celtic and Scots languages at the Liet International song contest for European lesser used languages.  Ten acts from the various Celtic and Scots languages travelled from far and wide to Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Scotland, to perform in front of an enthusiastic audience.  The event was also broadcast live over the internet.

The European elections saw a mixed bag of results in terms of how the new Parliament will be dealing with the issues faced by Europe’s lesser-used language speakers and national minorities. On the plus side the elections saw several MEPs elected who are proactive in their support for lesser used languages and national minorities, on the negative side activists will have to watch the right and far right MEPs who have a record of denouncing national minorities.

Four anti-Basque clauses have been removed from a Navarre government Foral Decree which discriminated against the use of Basque in public administration. It marks a step forward for civil society in Nafarroa / Navarre which had campaigned against the Decree.

The UK has just issued its third report on its implementation of the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, while it notes steady progress for the UK languages Welsh, Cornish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, and Scots, full details on the implementation of measures for Irish and Ulster Scots are absent pending a supplementary report from the government of northern Ireland. In addition, the report is nearly a year late.