Prague, March 23 (CTK) – Associations of ethnic minorities have the right to demand bilingual street signs, according to a new amendment to the law on Czech municipalities that President Milos Zeman has signed into law.
This right applies to associations of ethnic minorities that operate in the given municipality for five or more years.
A municipality should introduce bilingual street signs if at least 10 percent of its population claimed the given foreign nationality in the latest census and the municipal representatives approve of the signs.
Bilingual signs are used mostly in Silesia where a strong Polish minority has been living, for example in the town of Cesky Tesin, at the border with Poland.
The new amendment also gives the Interior Ministry the power to decide land disputes between municipalities that merged or divided in two.
