ACFC/56DOC(2016)001 to the enjoyment of minority rights. This is particularly the case with respect to persons belonging to numerically smaller minorities for whom the use of their minority language in official communications may have a distinct emblematic value. Overall, the Advisory Committee has consistently held that numerical thresholds should be considered indicative and should be flexibly used,114 as regular consultations with the national minority representatives concerned are more apt to promote the enjoyment of minority rights than fixed thresholds. Attention must further be paid to ensure that multiple affiliations are not used as a pretext to lower the numerical size of national minorities. Any self-identification as a person belonging to a national minority must be recorded and processed as such, also when part of a multiple affiliation (see also paragraph 16). 83. The right to learn the minority language or receive instruction in it (Article 14(2)) may also be made available only in certain areas where persons belonging to national minorities reside traditionally or in substantial numbers. In addition, this right also presupposes demand for such education. It is essential therefore to ensure that parents are adequately made aware of the possibility contained in Article 14(2) to have instruction in the minority language, as well as of the benefits attached to first language education for the learning of other languages. State obligations to ensure opportunities for minority-language education contained in Article 14(2) are further limited to “as far as possible”, which again indicates that the resources of the state party must be taken into account.115 Yet, the Advisory Committee has encouraged states parties also to extend the ability to access education in and of minority languages to persons belonging to national minorities who live in capitals or other urban centres, including through making contemporary and online learning tools available as such provision does not always have to be cost-intensive.116 114. Flexibility in this context may mean, for instance, that it is decided on a case-by-case basis whether the number of learners is sufficient to open a class in the specific context and what the modalities of teaching may entail. See Third Opinion on Finland. 115. See Explanatory Report, paragraph 75. 116. See Second and Third Opinions on Austria and Second and Third Opinions on Finland. 32