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Abstract
New regionalism has discovered culture as a political instrument for promoting economic development. But where local traditions have come to be associated with failure, backwardness and conflict, these negative images can become a burden for regional development. In addition to its political and economic peripherality, the Austrian province of Burgenland is characterized by a multi-ethnic heritage that has long been threatened by national assimilation. But the transition in neighbouring Central Eastern Europe has motivated Burgenland's politicians to mobilize the fragmented minority culture as an asset for regional development. Despite its weak civic traditions suffocated by political party clientelism, Burgenland illustrates a successful case of a culture-based new regionalism driven by a regional government that is strongly embedded within Austria's centralized federalism. In the absence of endogenous claims for regional autonomy, the government's policy has helped to overcome ethnic divisions by designing intercultural legitimacy from the top down. But cultural new regionalism also entails winners and losers, even in a civic field that has been as little politicized as Burgenland's national minority heritage. The regional elites still face the problem of how to integrate the various civic organizations in the minority field and thus base the regional vision within a bottom-up movement.
Acknowledgement
This article is based on the empirical research conducted by the author at the European University Institute Florence with the EU-FP6 project ‘Euroreg: changing interests and identities in European border regions’. The publication work has been hosted by the London School of Economics with the support of the Austrian Science Fund. The author would like to express her thanks to Michael Keating and Zoe Bray for their comments, to Gerhard Baumgartner for his introductory contacts, to David Grover and Eve Hepburn for language corrections, and to the interviewees for their kind interest and time. The usual disclaimers apply.
Notes
As the survey of the more recent census of 2001 is considered politically questionable by many minority groups, the statistics of 1991 are still the official numbers used by most actors involved in minority politics. Taking into account the problems of quantifying minority belonging, these numbers combine surveys of everyday language use in the census of 1991 and self-estimates by the minority organizations to constitute a rough comparison (Statistik Austria: www.statistik.gv.at; www.initiative.minderheiten. at/; www.gruene.at/10bl/ (accessed Feb. 2004).
Apart from the HKD (Hrvatsko kulturno društvo u Gradišću/Kroatischer Kulturverein im Burgenland), situated in Eisenstadt, the other established conservative Croatian organization is the Croatian Academics Club, HAK (Kroatischer Akademikerklub/Hrvatski akademski klub), founded in 1848 and situated in Vienna.
Prezidij SPÖ-mandatarov iz hrvatskih i mišanojezicnih opcin u Gradišcu/Präsidium der SPÖ-Mandatare aus kroatischen und gemischtsprachigen Gemeinden im Burgenland, Eisenstadt.
‘Sprachenerhebung: trotz Minderheiten wenig Interesse im Burgenland’, Austrian Press Agency hereafter APA, 11 Nov. 1976 (in electronic news archive at: www.apa-defacto.at)
‘Staatsvertrag’ Art. 7; ‘Volksgruppengesetz’, Fed. Law Gazette No.396/1976.
‘Wandel im Osten als Chance für die Volksgruppen’, APA, 30 Sept. 1990.
‘[Walter] Prior: ORF-Sendungen für kroatische Volksgruppe zu begrüßen’, OTS, 7 May 1990 (original press statement, in electronic news archive at: www.apa-defacto.at); ‘Ortstafelfrage: SP-Mandatare setzen auf Prinzip der Freiwilligkeit’, APA, 28 Apr. 1994.
Interview 20 Jun 2005: managing director of Burgenländisch-Kroatisches Zentrum and of Burgenländisch-Kroatischer Kulturverein in Wien, board member of Intitiative Minderheiten, member of Advisory Council for Croatian nationality.
‘Ordinance of the Federal Government governing the Advisory Councils for National Minorities’, Fed. Law Gazette No.38/1977.
DZ (Djelatna zajednica hrvatskih politicarov u Gradišcu/Arbeitsgemeinschaft kroatischer Kommunalpolitiker im Burgenland), Kroatisch Gerasdorf; interview 29 Jul. 2005: president of working group of ÖVP representative of bilingual municipalities in Burgenland, mayor of Guettenbach, President of bgld. Gemeindebund, member of Advisory Council for Croatian nationality.
Of 24 seats in total, 5 each were allocated to the political parties SPÖ and ÖVP, 2 to the Catholic Church in the ‘party curia’; in the ‘party-independent curia’ 4 seats were constituted by party-close minority organizations and only the remaining 8 were taken by independent ethnic associations. http://www.hkd.at/iinfode.htm (accessed June 2005).
‘Aufgaben des Beirates’, Kurier, 23 Nov. 1993 (national daily newspaper, in electronic news archive at: www.apa-defacto.at)
‘Burgenländische Seele wird zu den zweisprachigen Ortstafeln untersucht’, Kurier, 31 May 1994; ‘Ortstafelfrage: SP-Mandatare setzen auf Prinzip der Freiwilligkeit’, APA, 28 April 1994; ‘Zweisprachige Ortstafeln im Burgenland: Verfassungsklage droht’, APA, 13 April 1994; ‘SPÖ verzögert die Aufstellung von gemischten Ortstafeln im Burgenland’, Der Standard, 25 Dec. 1994 (national daily newspaper, in electronic news archive at: www.apa-defacto.at); ‘Abstimmung über Ortstafeln’, Kurier, 8 Feb. 1994; ‘Durchbruch bei zweisprachigen Ortstafeln für das Burgenland’, APA, 18 Nov. 1993; ‘“Ortstafelstreit” auf burgenländisch’, Kurier, 6 Nov. 1993; ‘SPÖ verzögert die Aufstellung von gemischten Ortstafeln im Burgenland’, Der Standard, 25 Feb. 1994.
‘Erste Zweisprachige Ortstafel im Burgenland’, APA, 13 July 2000.
‘Topographical Ordinance for the Burgenland’, Fed. Law Gazette vol.II No.170/2000.
HKDC (Kroatisches Kultur- und Dokumentationszentrum/Hrvatski kulturni i dokumentarni centar: Eisenstadt/Zeljezno).
‘Walter Prior—Ein Burgenlandkroate als Landtagspräsident’, APA, 28 Dec. 2000.
Interviews (a) 21 July 2005: political secretary of regional governor of Burgenland (SP), chairman of Croatian Culture and Documentation Center (HKDC), Croatian Advisory Council, and of General Conference of all Advisory Councils; (b) 26 July 2005: regional councilor and parliamentary representative in Landtag Burgenland, ÖVP speaker for nationality issues, member of Croatian Advisory Council; (c) 31 Aug. 2005: representative in federal parliament, speaker for minority issues of Green Party.
Apart from the EU Acquis Communautaire, the European context provides a broad normative framework for the promotion of national minority rights with more or less binding effect at the intergovernmental level. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of 1994 exerts legally binding effects upon its signatory states. The Copenhagen Criteria of 1993 define respect for minority rights as one of the conditions for EU accession, whereas a similar clause is not part of the legal framework applying to member states. The former was signed by Austria in 1995 and ratified in 1998, but leaves a wide range of optional clauses to the choice of the signatory states. Therefore, many minority representatives conceive it as an impotent instrument for any bottom-up claims beyond those available to them anyway by domestic law. The latter is not applicable since Austria joined the EU as a member in 1995. However, the conclusion of both intergovernmental agreements during Austria's EU accession negotiations might have influenced several changes in the federal nationality regime. In the year 2000, the EU sanctions imposed bilaterally by all the member states might have increased the pressure for the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention, as reflected from June 2000 by the national reporting procedure: Österreichisches Volksgruppenzentrum Citation2000; Österreichische Bundesregierung, 2000, 2002; Council of Europe, Citation2002; Austria's Declaration contained in the instrument of ratification registered on 31 Mar. 1998; Chart of Signatures and Ratifications and Status of Monitoring Work; http://www.coe.int/T/E/human_rights/minorities/2._FRAMEWORK (accessed 15 June 2005); interviews (a) 21 Mar. 2005: press officer of Österreichisches Volksgruppenzentrum; 22 June 2005: chief editor of Hrowatski Novine—Kroatische Wochenzeitung, managing director of Kroatischer Presseverein; 21 July 2005: editor of Croatian minority media, ORF Burgenland.
From 1995 until 2005, the regional GDP increased by 47.8% (national average 39.8%), and the regional per capita income increased by 47.5% (national average 34.8%), and regional employment grew by 15.8% between 1995–2007. Yet, from 2000 until 2006 the gross regional product grew by only 2% (national average 2.3%), and in 2007, regional employment amounted to only 2.6% of the whole country: http://wko.at/statistik/bundesland/basisdaten.pdf (accessed 26 June 2008).
Burgenland is a member in the Alps-Adria region to the west (Böckler, 2004), in the Centrope project promoted by Vienna to the east, the ARGE Donauländer including the whole Danube region, the Assembly of European Regions and the ‘Europäische Konferenz der Weinbauregionen’, and in inner-Austrian co-operation with the regions of Vienna and Lower Austria in the ‘Planungsgemeinschaft Ost’ and the ‘Verkehrsverbund Ostregion’.
Unser Ziel ist die erfolgreiche Stärkung unseres Landes - wir wollen in die obere Klasse der europäischen Erfolgsregionen aufsteigen. Mit diesem ehrgeizigen Anspruch trete ich als Landeshauptmann gemeinsam mit dem Team dieser Landesregierung an. … Die Mehrsprachigkeit unseres Landes kommt uns dabei noch als zusätzlicher Startvorteil zugute, weil wir damit leichteren Zugang zu den Märkten in Ungarn und Kroatien erhalten. Den Volksgruppen kommt in diesem Sinne auch eine wichtige Brückenfunktion auf der wirtschaftlichen Ebene zu.Regierungserklärung of Landeshauptmann Niessl, Burgenländischer Landtag, XVIII. Gesetzgebungsperiode - 2. Sitzung - Donnerstag, 1 Feb. 2001, pp.33–40. Available at: www.burgenland. gv.at (accessed Sept. 2005).
Der neue Landtag…ist in seiner Zusammensetzung ein gutes Spiegelbild der Vielfalt unseres Landes. Es zeigt sich die breite Palette politischer Strömungen, die letztendlich jede auf ihre Weise positiv für das Land arbeiten wollen. Im neuen Landtag wird auch die konfessionelle Vielfalt unseres Landes deutlich. Nicht zuletzt dokumentiert die Zusammensetzung des Landtages auch die sprachliche Vielfalt, den Reichtum des Landes durch seine Volksgruppen. Wir setzen damit eine weit über die Grenzen des Landes hoch geschätzte Tradition des Burgenlandes fort, die sich vor allem durch Toleranz, gegenseitiges Verständnis und durch das Miteinander auszeichnet. Ansprache des neugewählten Landtagspräsidenten, Walter Prior, Burgenländischer Landtag, XVIII. Gesetzgebungsperiode - 1. Sitzung - Donnerstag, 28 Dec. 2000, p.8.
‘OGM: Situation burgenländischer Kroaten “alarmierend”’, APA, 15 Dec. 1994.
Die ersten Jahre in der EU bestätigen den allgemeinen Trend auch in der burgenländischen Arbeitswelt: die Arbeitnehmer/innen brauchen heute eine solide Ausbildung und müssen sich neuen Entwicklungen anpassen können. In verstärktem Maße kommt aber eine weitere Anforderung zur Geltung—Sprachkenntnisse! Wer zwei oder mehr Sprachen beherrscht, hat eindeutig Startvorteile im Wettbewerb um gute Jobs! (Ivancsics, Citation1998).
‘Minderheitenschulgesetz für das Burgenland’, Fed. Law Gazette No. 641/1994.
In 1996, the bilingual schooling subsidies for all of Austria amounted to ATS90 million (€6.54 million) in addition to ATS13 million (€0.94 million) from other minority project funding, making the Federal Ministry of Education and Culture the most important source for the promotion of bilinguality (Federal Government, 2002).
This is probably an overestimate because not all of the €1.196 million allocated to Croatians, €278 000 to Hungarians and €382 000 to Roma (Rechnungshof, Citation2004: 10) actually subsidized activities located in Burgenland or associated with the region.
Burgenländischer Kulturbericht, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2001, 2003, available at: http://www.hkd.at/iinfode. htm (accessed 21 Mar. 2008).
Wagner et al. (2003); statistics ERDF (Jul 2005) & Interreg IIIA (Apr. 2005), provided by Regional Management Burgenland.
Interview 21 Jul 2005: political secretary of Regional Governor of Burgenland (SP), chairman of Croatian Culture and Documentation Center HKDC, chairman of Croatian Advisory Council and of General Conference of all Advisory Councils.
As the Federal Court of Audit stated in its 2004 review, the Advisory Councils' decisions about the distribution of minority subsidizing are normally accepted and, as such, they are implemented by the Federal Chancellory:10.1. Das BKA entsprach bei den Entscheidungen über die einzelnen Förderungen in vollem Umfang den Empfehlungen der jeweiligen Volkgruppenbeiräte.10.2. Somit überließ das BKA de facto den Beiräten die Entscheidung über die Förderungswürdigkeit der Anträge. Es fehlten jedoch spezifische Förderungsrichtlinien, um die Praxis der Volksgruppenförderung ingesamt transparenter zu machen (Rechnungshof, 2004: 11).
Interviews: (a) 21 Jul. 2005: president of Kroatischer Kulturverein im Burgenland, member of Croatian Advisory Council; (b) 21 Jul. 2005: political secretary of regional governor of Burgenland (SP), chairman of Croatian Culture and Documentation Center HKDC, chairman of Croatian Advisory Council and of General Conference of all Advisory Councils.
Interviews: (a) 21 Jul. 2005: president of Kroatischer Kulturverein im Burgenland and member of Croatian Advisory Council; (b) 29 Jul. 2005: president of working group of ÖVP representatives of bilingual municipalities in Burgenland, mayor of Guettenbach, president of Bgld. Gemeindebund, member of Advisory Council for Croatian nationality.
HGKD (Hrvatsko Gradišćansko kulturno društvo u Beču/Burgenländisch-Kroatischer Kulturverein in Wien); HAK (Hrvatski akademski klub/Kroatischer Akademikerklub, Wien-Eisenstadt); HŠtD (Hrvatsko štamparsko društvo/Kroatischer Presseverein, Eisenstadt).
Interviews: (a) 20 June 2005: managing director of Burgenländisch-Kroatisches Zentrum and of Burgenländisch-Kroatischer Kulturverein in Wien, board member of Intitiative Minderheiten, member of Advisory Council for Croatian nationality; (b) 22 June 2005: chief editor of Hrowatski Novine – Kroatische Wochenzeitung, managing director of Kroatischer Presseverein; (c) 21 July 2005: editor of Croatian minority media, ORF Burgenland; (d) 27 July 2005: private lawyer and member of HAK.
In particular, the Croatian Culture and Documentation Center ‘HKDC’ (Hrvatski kulturni i dokumentarni centar/Kroatisches Kultur- und Dokumentationszentrum, Eisenstadt), the School for Adult Education of the Burgenland Croats ‘HNVŠ’ (Narodna visoka škola Gradišcanskih Hrvatov/Volkshochschule der Burgenländischen Kroaten, Eisenstadt), the Association of Burgenland Croatian Pedagogues ‘ZORA’ (Društvo Gradišcanskih pedagogov/Verein burgenländisch-kroatischer Pädagogen, Eisenstadt), and the Scientific Institute of the Burgenland Croats ‘ZIGH’ (Znanstveni institut Gradišcanskih Hrvatov/Wissenschaftliches Institut der Burgenländischen Kroaten, Eisenstadt) started to develop new teaching materials and schooling plans for bilingual language education in Burgenland. ‘Wissenschaftliches Institut der Burgenland-Kroaten gegründet’, APA, 31 Jan. 1994; interviews: (a) 22 June 2005: chief editor of Hrowatski Novine – Kroatische Wochenzeitung, managing director of Kroatischer Presseverein; (b) 21 July 2005: editor of Croatian minority media, ORF Burgenland; (c) 22 July 2005: parliamentary representative in Burgenland Landtag (Greens), founder of cultural initiative KUGA, Croatian rock-band Bruji.
Statistics, Regional Management Burgenland, April/July 2005.
Interviews: (a) 21 July 2005: president of HKD, member of Croatian Advisory Council; (b) 28 July 2005: managing director of Regional Management Burgenland (development agency managing EU funds); (c) 9 Aug. 2005: managing director of association OHO (Offenes Haus Oberwart).
Statistics, Regional Management Burgenland, status May/July 2005.
Originating within the Croatian minority, the association Kulturverein KUGA (Kulturna zadruga in Großwarasdorf/Veliki Boristof) was founded in 1982, and promoted cultural activities in view of a critical, modern, non-folkloristic understanding of minority identities. Seeking communication with the Roma minorities, in 1989, OHO (Offenes Haus Oberwart) started its work with a similar intercultural understanding of regional culture.
The allocation of structural funds to the member states is mostly an intergovernmental issue (Hooghe and Keating, 1994), particularly in the negotiations about Austria's EU accession as a net-contributor. Yet, Burgenland's peripheral situation, symbolically represented by its national minorities, contributed an argument that linked the intergovernmental interests of the federal state with those of the region. This was also expressively symbolized to the public when the EU Commissioner visited the region for the acknowledgment of Burgenland's objective 1 status. The official programme included a concert at the Croatian initiative KUGA in Grosswarasdorf, which then received EU structural funds for its countercultural activities. On the contrary, Europahaus never received any regionally administered EU funds and continued its controversial programming at a low level, with a less regional and more international orientation and direct subsidies by the EU Commission. See: ‘Burgenland becircte EU-Regionalkommissar’, APA, 26 Nov. 1993; ‘EU-Kulturattaches besuchen Burgenland’, APA, 12 Oct. 1994; ‘EU ist burgenländische Kulturszene Millionen wert’, Kurier, 11 Oct. 1996; ‘Millionen für Alternativkultur’, Kurier, 25 Mar. 1997; interviews: (a) 22 July 2005: parliamentary representative in Burgenland Landtag (Greens), founder of cultural initiative KUGA, Croatian rock-band Bruji; (b) 28 July 2005: managing director of NGO Europahaus Burgenland; (c) 9 Aug. 2005: managing director of association OHO (Offenes Haus Oberwart).
Interviews: (a) 22 June 2005: chief editor of Hrowatski Novine – Kroatische Wochenzeitung, managing director of Kroatischer Presseverein; (b) 25 July 2005: mayor of border village Bildein, initiator of EU-funded cross-border co-operations; (c) 26 July 2005: inspector for bilingual schooling in Landes-schulrat Burgenland, former chairwoman of Croatian School of Adult Education, member of association ZORA; see also Horvath and Müllner (1992); Zuckerstätter-Semela et al. (2001).
During the schooling year of 2004/05, the number of students attending bilingual schools during nine years of compulsory schooling (four years of primary school and four years of secondary school) amounted to 1701 for Croatian teaching (1435 primary, 266 secondary school; as well as 286 in high school), 1408 for Hungarian teaching (886 primary, 522 secondary, as well as 224 in high school), and 24 in Romany primary schools; see statistics in HKDC and Landesschulrat (2004).
Interview 27 July 2005: managing director of UMIZ/MMIK (Ungarisches Medien und Informationszentrum/Magyar Média és Információs Központ, Unterwart).
‘Hungary “Status Law” irks neighbours’, BBC, 19 June 2001. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1397385.stm (accessed 17 Feb. 2008). The bilateral pressure of the Hungarian kin-state may have some weight in the comparatively high federal allocation of minority subsidies, which interprets the territorial origin principle comparatively broadly by including the communist refugees of the 1950s. However, the need for the Hungarian minority to position itself in relation to various political regimes in the kin-state has left Burgenland's Hungarian minority internally weakened by political struggles.
CGH (Gradišcansko-hrvatski Centar/Burgenländisch-kroatisches Zentrum, Vienna); interview 20 June 2005: managing director of Burgenländisch-Kroatisches Zentrum and of Burgenländisch-Kroatischer Kulturverein in Wien, board member of Intitiative Minderheiten, member of Advisory Council for Croatian nationality.
Interviews: (a) 22 June 2005: chief editor of Hrowatski Novine – Kroatische Wochenzeitung, managing director of Kroatischer Presseverein; (b) 21 July 2005: editor of Croatian minority media, ORF Burgenland.
Interview 21 July 2005: political secretary of Regional Governor of Burgenland (SP), chairman of Croatian Culture and Documentation Center HKDC, chairman of Croatian Advisory Council and of General Conference of all Advisory Councils.
Interviews: (a) 22 Mar. 2005: president of Kulturverein Österreichischer Roma, district representative of Vienna SPÖ, chairman of Roma Advisory Council; (b) 29 July 2005: chairman of Verein Roma-Service, member of Roma Advisory Council. Since 1993 the Karl-Franzens University in Graz has worked on language codification of the Romani language in a dictionary of Burgenland Romanes.
See: http://wahlen.bgld.gv.at/wahlen/landtag/Wahlergebnisse/WahlenAuswahl.asp (accessed 21 Mar. 2008); interviews: (a) 30 June 2005: written interview response, parliamentary representative in Landtag Burgenland, FPÖ speaker on minority issues; (b) 22 July 2005: parliamentary representative in Burgenland Landtag (Greens), founder of cultural initiative KUGA, Croatian rock-band Bruji; (c) 26 July 2005: regional councilor and parliamentary representative in Landtag Burgenland, ÖVP speaker for nationality issues, member of Croatian Advisory Council.