Austria has unveiled the first bilingual train station name sign in Carinthia, a province in the south of the country that is home to a Slovenian minority.

By the end of the year, German-Slovenian bilingual signs are to be erected in all railway stations in municipalities with Austrian and Slovenian populations.

The main initiator of the move has been Olga Voglauer, a Carinthian Slovenian who serves as an MP in the Austrian parliament for the Greens.

The first sign, in Bleiburg/Pliberk was inaugurated by the Austrian Minister for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology Leonore Gewessler on 12 August.

At Voglauer's invitation, the event was also attended by Slovenian Justice Ministry State Secretary Milan Brglez, who described the new signs as "necessary small steps" to preserve the Slovenian language in Carinthia.

One of the umbrella organisations of the Slovenian minority, the National Council of Carinthian Slovenians (NSKS), is hoping that bilingual signs will also be introduced inside train and bus stations, the Slovenian programme of the Austrian public broadcaster ORF reported.

Brglez also commented on Austrian legislative changes aiming to expand the areas where courts would be obliged to use Slovenian as an official language in addition to German to the nearly entire existing bilingual area. He believes the changes will require patience, as they have to be endorsed by two thirds of the MPs.

The unveiling of the first bilingual train station name sign in Carinthia comes nearly a month after two bilingual road place name signs were vandalised in the province.

The Slovenian name of the village Gluhi les/Lauchenholz was blacked out, just days after a bilingual sign in Šentprimož/Sankt Primus was taped over, both in the municipality of Škocjan/Kanzianiberg.

The Slovenian Foreign Ministry and minority organisations condemned the vandalism in the strongest terms. The ministry also called on the authorities to bring perpetrators to justice.

Bilingual place names erected by the Austrian government in line with the requirements of the 1955 State Treaty were massively torn down by far-rightists in 1972.

After long-running efforts a memorandum was signed in 2011 by the Austrian government, the Carinthia state government and Slovenian minority representatives to put up bilingual town signs in all the villages in southern part of Austrian Carinthia in which the Slovenian-speaking population accounts for at least 17.5% of the entire population.

Aside from those 164 localities, municipalities can also decide to put up bilingual signs in places that are not mentioned in the document. By the end of October 2021, German-Slovenian names had been erected in 171 places in the Austrian province.