Governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia Joerg Haider angered Slovenia on Wednesday by replacing yet another bilingual town limits sign with a German-language sign that contains a separate inscription of the Slovenian name of the village.
Haider replaced the bilingual town limits sign in Schwabegg (Zvabek), which he had put up in May with outgoing Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, with a sign in German that also contains a smaller board featuring the Slovenian name for the village.
He claimed that he was prompted to act because the previous sign had been put up "incorrectly" and was hindering traffic and also failed to properly determine the limits of the settlement.
Moreover, he promised that he would in the future replace all bilingual signs that were put up wrongly, replacing them with German signs with additional Slovenian inscriptions.
The move has angered the Slovenian minority in Austria and prompted the Slovenian Foreign Ministry to issue a strong protest.
In its reaction, the ministry said it was staggered by Haider's actions and had forwarded this opinion to Austria through diplomatic channels.
The ministry added that the act was unacceptable and ran contrary to the Austrian State Treaty as well as unhelpful in efforts to promote the coexistence of two cultures and languages in Carinthia.
The ministry "expects that the Austrian federal authorities will condemn the act and intervene to ensure that the sign is returned to its original form, while further such acts are prevented".
Meanwhile, the National Council of Carinthian Slovenians, a minority organisation, said Haider was "making a mockery of the rule of law" with his actions.
It said the signs that are being erected by Haider ran contrary to the Austrian State Treaty, the rulings of the Austrian Constitutional Court and Austrian road safety laws.
The organisation called on Schuessel to act to stop such acts, while it also said the new Austrian government, once formed, should begin the procedure of impeaching Haider.
It also threatened to take the matter to the UN Human Rights Council if Schuessel failed to take actions against Haider.
The development is latest act in an ongoing dispute between Haider and the minority on the number of bilingual signs that Carinthia should put up in line with the Austrian State Treaty.
Haider has stubbornly opposed the erection of new signs, causing a stalemate that has so far failed to be resolved at either provincial or federal level.
The minority is demanding that more signs be put up, citing a 2001 ruling by the Austrian Constitutional Court which says that bilingual city limits signs need to be put up in all localities where the share of the ethnic Slovenian population has exceeded 10% in recent history.
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