Protection of minorities BILINGUAL PLACE-NAME SIGNS IN CARINTHIA The question of bilingual place-name signs in Carinthia has been unresolved for a long time. The Slovenians in Carinthia are a recognised ethnic group and minority. Therefore, the names of towns on place-name signs must also be in Slovenian if a certain percentage of the population has Slovenian as their mother tongue. Shortly before the editorial deadline of this report, there still was no equivalent signage in German and Slovenian at the town limits when entering or leaving a town. Obligation to install bilingual placename signs Place-name signs remain monolingual Constitutional Court deals with AOB motion 40 One of the most pressing minority rights issues in which the AOB has been actively involved in the past couple of years concerns the question of bilingual place-name signs in Carinthia, which has been unresolved for many years. The Constitutional Court decided in December 2005 that the Carinthian Administrative District Authority Völkermarkt is obligated to install bilingual place-name signs in the towns of Ebersdorf/Drveša vas and Bleiburg/Pliberk. In the absence of place-name signs in the Slovenian language, the directive issued by the Administrative District Authority Völkermarkt was overturned as violating the law. Both the then Governor of the State of Carinthia Jörg Haider and the then member of the Carinthian State Government State Councillor Gerhard Dörfler announced multiple times through the media that they wished to prevent the stipulation of bilingual place names that had been deemed proper under the Constitution by the Constitutional Court. Subsequently on 8 February 2006 the “displacement and reinstallation” of monolingual place-name signs was carried out in the presence and with the help of both officeholders. Based on a motion filed by the Austrian AOB, the Constitutional Court, with its ruling dated 26 June 2006, again overturned the place names “Ebersdorf” and “Bleiburg” in the directive issued by the Administrative District Authority Völkermarkt as violating the law, which had been the basis for this “place-name sign displacement”. The obligation to install bilingual place-name signs, however, was still not complied with. The subsequently issued directives by the