Minority Rights for Post-CommunistCountries of Europe: are there “required minority rights” for EUaccession?

SITUATION: MINORITY RIGHTS AND EU ACCESSION With the exception of Belarus and Russia, all post-communist European countries have expressed their desire to join the European Union. While eight of those countries are now set to join the EU next year, the non-accession countries of Eastern Europe continue to adjust their domestic policies in accordance with perceived EU requirements in preparation for eventual membership. This paper will look at which minority rights policies states need to adopt, if any, for acceptance in the EU. While economic criteria and the political criteria of Human Rights and Democracy are relatively clear, distinct requirements for minority rights remain elusive. Which policies need to be followed for acceptance in the European Union? RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: THREE GROUPS FOR COMPARISON (i) EU MEMBER-STATES; (ii) CURRENT ACCESSION COUNTRIES; (iii) NON-ACCESSION COUNTRIES This research paper is a comparative analysis of various European states and analyzes three distinct blocs of countries to understand both which minority policies are required for acceptance in the EU and how far away the non-accession countries are from that goal. First, the paper looks at EU member-states to discover if there is any common policy inside Europe with respect to national or ethnic minorities; by exploring EU-wide policies, we can learn more about what will be expected of future members. Ascertaining member-state policies is accomplished by analyzing EU-wide documents as well as national legislation from member-states. Second, the paper looks at the eight post-communist EU-accession countries and their experience over the past 13 years. What demands were placed on these countries vis-à-vis their minorities? What lessons can be drawn and what standards have been created? Third, the paper looks at the non-accession post-communist countries themselves, selecting a few case studies from South-East Europe and the former Soviet Union to compare their legislation with those of the first two groups. LACK OF STANDARDS This paper will show no common standards exist regarding minorities inside the EU; the only applicable standards are those connected with human rights Moreover, while the EU has established distinct criteria for potential members, we can actually draw very few concrete policy measures from the accession countries’ experience. Aside from a vague prescription for “inclusive” rights found in the Copenhagen Criteria, no minority rights policies were uniformly made conditional for invitations to join the Union. This lack of enforced rights exists in spite of the gravity attached to ethnic conflicts this past decade, and despite the foreign policy priority given to minority issues after the internecine wars witnessed in the post-communist region. More importantly perhaps, this paper will demonstrate that pressure to protect minorities that does exist is not based on any normative principles of minority protection, but rather guided by the political goal of international stability on the European continent. In fact, all policy demands have been and continue to be ad hoc measures applied inconsistently to different East European countries depending entirely on specific concerns related to individual countries and their minorities’ ability to mobilize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]