MINELRES: Romania: Ethnic Diversity Briefs, No.33

Thu Nov 28 16:15:34 2002

Original sender: Mediafax <[email protected]>

No. 33 / November 25, 2002

DIVERS
- reporting ethnic diversity -

SUMMARY
 1. ETHNIC RELATIONS HAS IMPROVED IN RECENT YEARS, POLL SHOWS
 2. NO ENOUGH MONEY FOR IMPROVING ROMA CONDITIONS, LEADERS SAY
 3. ETHNIC GERMANS BACK ROMANIA'S INTEGRATION TO NATO
 4. CHURCH TO BE BUILT FOR ETHNIC UKRAINIANS IN ROMANIA
 5. HUNGARIAN CONFERENCE AGREES ON AMENDING THE STATUS LAW
 6. DUMA DECLARES CYRILLIC AS THE ONLY OFFICIAL ALPHABET IN RUSSIAN
FEDERATION

 ETHNIC RELATIONS HAS IMPROVED IN RECENT YEARS, POLL SHOWS
 BUCHAREST - The relations between Romanians and Magyars are no longer
assumed as a problem, as it was the case for 1990 - 1995 period, at
present being accounted positively by both ethnicities, according to a
poll on inter-ethnic relations published last week. As for a possible
"Magyar danger", only 27% of the Romanians still believe it to be true.
"As for the Romanians from Transylvania, an ethnic mixed region, they
are viewed better and better, and such a fact indicates that closeness
and knowing the people next to you induce a positive effect ", indicated
Mircea Kivu, a sociolog from IMAS polling center.
 Yet this cannot be said in case of the relations between Romanians and
Roma people. About 40% of the Romanians believe that conflict relations
are held by them with the Roma people. This perception belongs to 15% of
Roma people, while the majority (71.6%) believes they develop good
cooperation with the Romanians, unlike only 31.3% have similar opinion
about the connections held with Roma people. This vision yet tends to
become positively changed, when Romanians or Roma people referring to
their stand towards those living in their neighborhood. "The relations
between Romanians and Roma people are further seen as a great issue,
which reflects in the low standard life led by Roma population but also
in the different view assumed by the members of each ethnicity towards
themselves in comparison with the others ", said Mircea Kivu. On the
other hand, Romanians believe that the minorities hold "as many rights
as they need ", while the Magyars and Roma people believe they have
"fewer ". (DIVERS)
                                            summary

 NO ENOUGH MONEY FOR IMPROVING ROMA CONDITIONS, LEADERS SAY
 BUCHAREST - In order to improve living condition for Roma people from
Romania, the Government next year is to allocate ROL 46bn from the State
budget, while other sum of around Euro 6mn is to be offered by the
European Union's PHARE programmes. Granting these sums stands for a
significant step taking into account the rather consistent financial
support, yet by any chance it is not enough to implement the Strategy
for improving Roma condition", according to secretary general of Roma
Party, Ilie Dinca. (DIVERS)
                                            summary

 ETHNIC GERMANS BACK ROMANIA'S INTEGRATION TO NATO
 SIBIU - The Democratic Forum of Germans from Romania (FDGR) has
recently sent a letter to the German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, where
demanding that Berlin should firmly support Romania's accession to NATO.
"FDGR, that politically represents German communities from Romania,
expressed on various occasions its conviction before the representatives
of the European communities that Romania's accession to Euro-Atlantic
structures is desirable both for our country's economic growth, as well
as for the entire Europe, from the political, economic and cultural
point of view ", according to the letter sent to the press. "We are
fully aware of the fact that so far Romania does not fulfill the terms
for the integration to EU. We try to bring our contribution to
accomplish these criteria as soon as possible. Yet, as regards NATO
issue we deem that at present Romania is ready to join the coalition as
a partner with full rights and duties. As for the political point of
view, it is very important for the integration to NATO to be decided
now", underlines FDGR. (DIVERS)
                                            summary

 CHURCH TO BE BUILT FOR ETHNIC UKRAINIANS IN ROMANIA
 CERNAUTI - The Ukrainian Orthodox community in Southern Bukovyna,
Romania, is going to have its own church, press agency InfoNews informs.
This announcement was made by Teofil Bauer, head of the regional
administration of Chernivtsi, the neighboring Ukrainian region. Bauer
said that building a church was a feasible and necessary task. In
addition, Bauer said that the Romanian community in Ukraine has all the
conditions for a full cultural life, including Romanian schools and
Ukrainian Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate where services
Are held in Romanian. Bauer said that the Romanian side, however, is
procrastinating on creating the same conditions for Ukrainians in
Romania, assuming that they can attend Romanian Orthodox churches. He
said that the Ukrainian community can hardly be satisfied with such an
approach, since services are held in the Romanian language. He also said
that do not Ukrainians feel comfortable attending churches of the
Russian Old Believers, who also live in the area, because of differences
in rite. Therefore, he said, the Ukrainian community in Romania is in
vital need of its own church. The Ukrainian Greek Catholics who reside
in this part of Romania have a Greek Catholic vicariate in the region,
which is subordinate to the Romanian Greek Catholic Church. (DIVERS)
                                            summary

 HUNGARIAN CONFERENCE AGREES ON AMENDING THE STATUS LAW
 BUDAPEST - The conference of Government ministers and representatives
of parliamentary parties and ethnic Hungarians abroad (MAERT) last week
reached consensus on the Hungarian government's proposed amendments to
the Status Law and the possible consequences of Hungary's EU accession
for ethnic Hungarians, RFE/RL reported. Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy
told the gathering that Hungary is striving to play a stabilizing role
in the region. The closing document included a proposal to eliminate
preferential treatment of ethnic Hungarians in granting work permits.
Participants also decided that ethnic Hungarian pupils abroad who attend
Hungarian-language schools will receive a 20,000-forint ($85) annual
subsidy. Opposition FIDESZ Deputy Chairman Zsolt Nemeth proposed that
0.5 percent of the nation's budget be set aside for subsidizing ethnic
Hungarians. He complained that the 1.2 billion forints ($5 million)
provided in next year's budget to implement the goals laid down in the
law will not even cover educational benefits. (DIVERS)

 DUMA DECLARES CYRILLIC AS THE ONLY OFFICIAL ALPHABET IN RUSSIAN
FEDERATION
 MOSCOW - With a large majority, the Russian deputies recently approved
a controversial law project that declares Cyrillic as the only official
alphabet within the territory of the Russian federation, Eurolang
reports. 366 members of the Duma voted in favour of the law, while only
15 were opposed, the news agency Reuters reports. The new law
particularly concerns the autonomous regions of the federation Chechnya
and Tartarstan, which currently use the Latin alphabet. This decision
has no other precedent in the entire world, commented Fandas Safiullin,
a Tartar deputy and opponent of the decision and adds that one specific
alphabet cannot be imposed as universally valid. 'The use of different
alphabets Cyrillic, Latin or Arabic were always the subject of
discussion in Russia', explains Safiullin. 'This is not the first
initiative of the Moscow parliament to protect the Russian language.
Already in June the Duma opened debate on another law project which
foresees the translation of every  English word and the moderate use of
neologisms.' (DIVERS)

DIVERS is a weekly news bulletin edited by the Mediafax News Agency with
financial support from Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center (EDRC) in
Cluj.
For now, the full version of the bulletin is only available in Romanian
and can be found at www.divers.ro
e-mail: [email protected]

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