The Austrian state of Styria will introduce Croatian as a mother language subject in the school year 2024-25, the Croatian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

“This is a big achievement and a result of our years-long endeavours to offer Croatian children an important basis for quality learning of the mother language. I thank Styria for its big engagement in this area,” said Minister Gordan Grlic Radman, who today met with Styria’s Minister for International Affairs, Education and Human Resources, Werner Armon.

The treatment of the Croatian language in the Austrian school system is one of the more significant bilateral issues and this decision is based on the position that Croatian is an official EU language, which makes the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Language subject no longer appropriate, the ministry said in a press release.

This is also a significant step towards fully respecting the sovereignty of the Croatian language in Austria, given that on the federal level there still exists the scientifically unfounded recommendation of the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research from 1996 not to separate the teaching of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian on ethnic grounds, the press release said.

Croats in Austria are well-integrated and the two friendly countries have long historical ties, Grlić Radman said, adding that “Croatian was entered into statistics as an independent language more than 100 years ago.”

“This big step in Styria paves the way for a satisfactory status of Croatian education and the Croatian language across Austria,” he added.