The Commission of the Assembly of the Italian Union for Bilingualism, whose work has been severely penalized by the pandemic, was finally able to… “take the field”. The first official meeting supported by the members of the Working Group of the highest deliberative body of the apical unitary Association of the Italian National Community with a representative of the self-governing authorities took place yesterday in Rovinj. The delegation of the Commission, formed by the president of the Assembly of the UI, Paolo Demarin, and the councilors Moreno Vrancich and Krsto Babić (Gaetano Benčić, of the CI of Torre, was unable to attend the meeting due to unavoidable work commitments), was received in her office by the vice president of the Istrian Region elected on the CNI quota, Jessica Acquavita.
During the meeting, Demarin (Comunità degli Italiani di Sissano), Vrancich (CI di Fiume) and Babić (CI di Abbazia) explained to their interlocutor the genesis and the purposes of the initiatives launched by the Commission, aimed at monitoring the application of administrative bilingualism in regional (territorial) and local autonomies, defining an analysis of the current state of direct application of the legislation on the use and knowledge of the Italian language by territorial (regional) and local autonomies, with particular reference to the verification of the publication of legislative and administrative acts in Italian, as well as preparing a subsequent elaboration of the research result to then present it to fellow countrymen and the general public in the context of a series of round tables. The Vice-President of the Istrian Region was also informed about the "survey" that the members of the Commission are preparing to carry out in Visignano, Valle, Visinada, Verteneglio and Pirano and the criteria on the basis of which the locations in question were chosen. Considering that the vitality and presence of the Italian language within the Istrian Region will also be assessed in the scope of the investigation, the members of the Commission asked Jessica Acquavita to provide them with data on the number of officials/employees capable of speaking in Italian in a selection of administrative bodies of the territorial self-government unit (departments of Culture, Education, Agriculture, etc.), as well as clarifications on the methods used by the Region to certify the mastery of the Italian language of its officials/employees. Wishing the members of the Commission “good luck”, Jessica Acquavita announced that within the scope of her competences she will do everything possible to facilitate their work.

Source: The Voice of the People – 03/07/2021