structures in the ethnic groups due to the existing mass emigration and differences in birth rate.
Mass non-citizenship
The situation with the mass non-citizenship in Latvia and Estonia is given in Table 4.
Non-citizens of Latvia and Estonia constitute 70 % and 22 % correspondingly of all persons without nationality living in the 500-million EU. The fact that those who reached the age of majority by 1991, before that had all political rights in their current states of residence distinguish them from the remaining 8 % of non-citizens in the EU.[5]
In 2012, 1156 people naturalized in Estonia and 2213 in Latvia, which means that it would require 80 and 133 years correspondingly to naturalise the remaining non-citizens. According to the Eurostat data for 2010, Latvia is in 13th and Estonia is in the 20th place in terms of the rate of conferment of nationality. Lithuania is in penultimate place among 33 countries of the EU, EFTA and candidate countries.[6]
Table 4
Comparative data on status of population groups in Estonia and Latvia (2011–2012)[7]
Of 80 differences in the right of citizens and non-citizens of Latvia, on 16 occasions the rights, which cannot be exercised by non-citizens (41 % born locally, for the rest average residence period in Latvia exceeds 45 years), can be exercised by the foreigners who are the EU citizens. For example, they can stand for local elections in Latvia and Estonia whole non-citizens of Latvia, unlike their Estonian fellows, cannot even vote in local elections. The author believes that the continued existence of the mass non-citizenship in the Baltic States is a test of devotion to the ideals of democracy declared in the EU. The test, which this structure has failed ingloriously.
Nonetheless, the share of non-citizens of Estonia in 1992 was 32 % of the population and 83 % of ethnic minorities, and the share of non-citizens of Latvia in 1993 was 29 % and 60 % correspondingly. And while in the last decade of the 20th century the mass non-citizenship significantly influenced the election results, employment of ethnic minorities and their involvement in business, now the role of this adverse factor has substantially weakened compared with the language restrictions. For example, in 2013 in Latvia for the first time the municipal election took place in the circumstances where the elected candidates faced the requirement to have the confirmed knowledge of Latvian to C1 category (5th out of 6 difficulty categories), and a mandate withdrawal procedure was put in place. 79 % of citizens, which is about 300 thousand people, who are non-ethnic Latvians do not satisfy this requirement. At the same time, “only” 260 thousand non-citizens are completely deprived of their right to vote.[8]
Status of languages of ethnic minorities
In the Baltic countries, only two ethnic minority languages have a reproduction mechanism, i.e. school network: Russian and Polish. School network with education in Polish is present in Lithuania (64 schools with 11,300 students in school year 2007/2008) and in Latvia (5 schools with 1147 students in school year 2010/2011, 3 of those are secondary).[9]
In the preparation of the resolution of the 2011 Regional Conference of Russian Compatriots in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the author collected comparative statistical data supporting a special role of Russian language in the Baltic States (Table 5).
Table 5
Population of Baltic States by ethnic composition and relation to Russian language (million persons)*
* Population and ethnic composition data are taken from the websites if Interior Ministries of the respective countries)as of August 2011); data on the share person whose native language is Russian from the 2000-national population census; language fluency data taken from the study “Russian language in new independent stated”, Eurasia Foundation, 2008.
This is how the status of Russian language was reflected in the Resolution: “The constitutions of all three countries name the native language of ethnic majority as the state language. The languages of ethnic minorities, among which Russian (in Lithuania, together with Polish) is predominant, are unnaturally called ‘foreign’ in legislative acts of Latvia and Estonia. Russian has been banished from the state administration and court procedures, erased from geographic maps and personal documents, is prohibited from being used in the communication of the people with the authorities even in the areas where ethnic Russians are a majority.
Following Latvia’s example, the local state languages are unreasonably forced as the languages of education onto the educational systems in Estonia and Lithuania. Russian is not among the mandatory school subjects in the ethnic majority schools, which leads to dramatic fall in the knowledge of the language by the young generation.
The guarantees of their languages given to the ethnic minorities in the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities that has been ratified by all three Baltic States are not working. Russian, which is one of the most spoken languages in the world, is spoken by 60 % of the Baltic population and is native language for almost one quarter of their population, in terms of the level of legal protection is significantly lower than a dialect of a minor group living in the country where the standards of ethnic minority protection are followed.”
Limitation of education opportunities in ethnic minority languages
The system of education in the languages of ethnic minorities in the Baltic States is being eliminated in two ways:
– by legislative introduction of the majority language into the ethnic minority schools as the language of education;
– outnumbering (compared with native nation schools) reduction of number of ethnic minority schools.
Latvia became a ‘pioneer’ of limiting possibilities to receive education in Russian.[10] In 1995 the Education Act was supplemented with the provision requiring that at least two subjects should be taught in Latvian in secondary school and three in upper secondary school.
Since 2000, four programmes have been introduced in schools and they differ only in the number of hours taught in Latvian. 23 % to 82 % of teaching hours remain for native language in the 1st year and 14.7 % to 26.5 % in the 9th year.
The projects of complete transfer of the ethnic minority schools to the education in Latvian language had been under consideration since 1996 and caused mass protests. As a result a compromise was reached, which satisfied neither party: since 1 September 2004 no more than 40 % of classroom hours were allowed to be taught in native language.
Estonia is implementing a secondary school ‘reform’ based on the Latvian example of 2004: transfer of the first grammar school (from year 10 to year 12) to Estonian language started in September 2011 and should be completed (at least 60 % of classroom hours in Estonian) by 2013. The difference is that all Russian school in Estonia can apply for a permit to continue teaching in Russian. Six Narva and eleven Tallinn schools submitted their applications, but the government approved those for only two evening schools. The other schools went to court, but at the time of the latest update of the information, they had already lost in the first instance courts and the appeals had not been considered.[11]
The
