Poland’s education minister has cut by two thirds the number of hours of German taught in Polish schools to children from the country’s ethnic German minority. The money saved will be allocated to teaching Polish to members of the Polish diaspora in Germany.
The decision has been condemned by representatives of the German minority, who collected thousands of signatures on a petition against it, as well as by the political opposition. Poland’s commissioner for human rights has also warned that it may violate international agreements and the Polish constitution.
However, the measures have been supported in parliament by MPs from the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party and the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), who claim that it is, in fact, Poles in Germany who are discriminated against.
On Friday, an ordinance on educational institutions’ activities fostering “the sense of national, ethnic and linguistic identity of students belonging to national and ethnic minorities and communities using the regional language” was published by the education minister, Przemysław Czarnek.
The regulation, which applies only to the German minority, reduces the number of hours of German-language teaching for children from that minority from three to one per week, reports TVP Info.
According to census data, around 148,000 ethnic Germans reside in Poland, almost half of whom declare both Polish and German ethnicity. Most live in Silesia, a region that has historically been part of both Poland and Germany.
Czarnek’s decision follows a decision in December by parliament to cut funding for German teaching by 40 million zloty (€8.8 million) from the annual state budget and to instead allocate money to teaching Polish in Germany, where around two million Poles (plus more people with Polish heritage) live.
The opposition-controlled upper house of parliament, the Senate, sought to restore the money for teaching German, but that decision was overturned last month in the more powerful lower-house Sejm by the votes of PiS and Confederation.
Among those who have pushed most vocally for the funding to be cut is Janusz Kowalski, an MP from PiS’s caucus and a former deputy minister. He argues that, because Poles do not have the status of a recognised minority in Germany, Germans in Poland should not be given such a privilege.
After Friday’s decision by Czarnek, Kowalski celebrated the decision, writing that “we have restored symmetry” by reducing the teaching of German and spending the funds on teaching Polish in Germany, “which does not spend even one euro on this”. There will be “no more discrimination against Poles in Germany”, he declared.
Wielki sukces MEN. Polskie władze zemściły się na polskich obywatelach za wyobrażenia i fobie polskich władz. Smutne, żenujące, pokazujące, że niektórzy nie rozumieją, czym jest obywatelstwo i na czym polega konstytucyjny zakaz dyskryminacji ze względu na pochodzenie. https://t.co/Lb7auQogJj
— Tomasz Terlikowski (@tterlikowski) February 7, 2022
The German embassy in Poland has, however, said that such claims by Kowalski and others are untrue. It notes that German states provide financing for the teaching of Polish. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, more than 5,000 children learn Polish, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
Poland’s German minority argue that it is in fact they who are now being discriminated against. “Discrimination of the German minority in Poland has become a fact,” wrote Rafał Bartek, head of the Social-Cultural Society of Germans in Opole Silesia, Poland’s largest German minority group.
“Despite many actions taken by the leaders of the German minority, as well as by parents and teachers, despite many protests, meetings and talks, the Polish government decided to introduce a solution that openly discriminates against one national minority, the German minority,” added his organisation.
In a statement quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza, MPs from the German SPD party described Poland’s decision as “unequivocal discrimination” being used to “score points in domestic politics by means of anti-German rhetoric”. It accused “the Polish government of isolating itself in the EU”.
An opposition MP, Monika Rosa, called the funding cut “outrageous”. She said that the decision would “harm our fellow citizens who pay taxes here, study here, raise their children, and make an indisputable contribution to the development of the Polish state”, reports Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
Last month, Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Marcin Wiącek, argued that cutting funding for teaching the language of a recognised national minority may violate the constitution, the Framework Convention of the Council of Europe, and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Article 35 of Poland’s constitution guarantees “national or ethnic minorities the freedom to maintain and develop their own language” and “the right to establish educational and cultural institutions”.
“I cannot agree that the reduction of expenses should take place at the expense of communities or groups that often experience marginalisation in various spheres of social or cultural life, and to which state institutions are especially obliged to support,” Wiącek wrote in a letter to the prime minister.
Main image credit: BARTLOMIEJ SOWA / AGENCJA GAZETA
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
