CONFERENCE ON LANGUAGE VARIETY ENDS IN ROVINJ

ROVINJ, March 23 (Hina) - The adoption of a final declaration on Friday marked the end of a two-day conference on language variety which took place in Rovinj. The declaration adopted at the conference which gathered more than 150 participants confirmed the importance of a multi-cultural and multilingual Europe, and called on all countries, regions and towns to contribute to the creation of such a Europe. The participants voiced conviction that multilingual education is crucial for the building up of a future Europe, and the knowledge of foreign languages creates better opportunities for employment in Europe. Following the conference, Croatian Minister for European Integration Ivan Jakovcic told reporters Croatia gave great importance to legal protection in the usage of minority languages, and stressed that through constitutional changes, regions and local communities in Croatia received new authorities, including those in the area of protecting minority languages and scripts. "The development of a democratic and tolerant society at a local and regional level is one of the foundations of modern Europe. Relations with national minorities and their right to the use of their languages and scripts are in ties with conditions the European Union is setting before its future members," Jakovcic said, adding in this sense, Croatia made great progress in the promotion of human rights. (hina) lml