Criticism of the minority policy has come from several quarters.
In addition to criticism from the opposition and minority organizations, the Council of Europe’s expert committee for minority languages also acted during the autumn.
– In the grand scheme of things, these are small sums, but they are incredibly essential for the minorities. So it’s a waste of competence and also financially, I think in any case, quite unjustifiable, said Jarmo Lainio, vice-chairman of the Council of Europe’s expert committee on minority languages to Sameradion earlier this autumn.
“The cuts continue”
The background is that the government in its budget lowers the allocations for minority languages. After the criticism, the government has now specified the sums and increased the allocations slightly. The Sami language center receives a total of eight million kroner, and the language centers for Finnish, Yiddish, Meänkieli and Romani Chib are awarded 20 million kroner.
For the Sami language centre, it is, as expected, a significantly lower amount than before. This year they had a grant of eleven million kroner and in the years before that a grant of ten million per year. “The process of cuts is continuing as previously planned,” writes Lars-Ove Szån, chief of staff at the Sami Parliament in an email to SVT Sápmi.