Interethnic Relations, Minority Rights and Security Concerns: a Four-Country Perspective (Ukraine – Moldova – Romania – Hungary)
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INTERETHNIC RELATIONS, MINORITY RIGHTS AND SECURITY CONCERNS: A FOUR-COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE (UKRAINE – MOLDOVA – ROMANIA – HUNGARY) Project supported by the East East: Partnership Beyond Borders Program International Renaissance Foundation Fundatia Soros – Moldova Soros Foundation Romania Kyiv 2008 1 Project participants: Hungarian team Coordinator: Andras RACZ (Teleki László Institute Centre for Foreign Policy Studies) Contributors: Andras Gyorgy DEAK, Balazs DOBOS, Andras RACZ Moldovan team Coordinator: Tatiana ZLOI (CAPTES Centre) Contributors: Veacheslav BERBECA, Ana PASCARU, Anastasia STOIANOVA Scientific Advisor: Mihai CERNENCU Editor: Radu GORINCIOI Translators: Svetlana LUPASCO, Irina POPUSOI Romanian team Coordinator: Iulia GEORGESCU (Asociatia Pro Democratia Filiala Cluj) Contributors: Monica CALUSER, Istvan HALLER, Borbala KOVACS, Claudia MACARIA Ukrainian team Coordinator: Sergiy GERASYMCHUK (Strategic and Security Studies Group) Contributors: Olexia BASARAB, Natalya BELITSER, Sergiy GERASYMCHUK, Mykhailo KIRSENKO, Yaroslav MATIYCHYK, Natalya STRELCHUK Editors * Natalya BELITSER (Pylyp Orlyk Institute for Democracy) Sergiy GERASYMCHUK (Strategic and Security Studies Group) * The editors express their sincere gratitude to pani Christina REDKO (US – Ukraine Foundation) for her kind assistance in editing the text 2 Table of Contents Preface Introduction PART I. General overview I.1. Regional historical context I.1.1 Hungary I.1.2 Moldova I.1.3 Romania I.1.4. Ukraine I.2 Political context I.2.1 Hungary I.2.2 Moldova I.2.3 Romania I.2.4 Ukraine I.3 Minorities: specific cases I.3.1 Hungary I.3.1.1 Roma I.3.2 The Republic of Moldova I.3.2.1 Ukrainians I.3.2.2 Roma I.3.2.3 Gagauzians (''Gagauz Yeri'') I.3.3 Romania I.3.3.1 Hungarians I.3.3.2 Roma I.3.3.3 Ukrainians and Ruthenians I.3.3.4 Turks and Tatars I.3.3.5 Jews I.3.4 Ukraine I.3.4.1 Russian minority I.3.4.2 Moldovans and Romanians I.3.4.3 Hungarians I.3.4.4 Roma I.3.3.5 Crimean Tatars I.4 Security challenges and potential threats I.4.1 Hungary I.4.2 Moldova I.4.3 Romania I.4.4 Ukraine PART II. Legislation and State Policies II.1 National Legislations and State Policies II.1.1 Hungary II.1.2 Moldova II.1.3 Romania II.1.4 Ukraine II.1.4.1 Legal base – general overview II.1.4.2 The system of responsible bodies II.1.4.3 Minority’s rights and obligations specified II.2 Bilateral Agreements II.2.1 Genaral Overview II.2.2 Bilateral Treaties between the Countries – Participants of the Project II.3 Multilateral Agreements and International Legislation 3 PART III. A role of Civil Society III.1 Hungary III.2 Moldova III.2.1 Overview III.2.2. Models of minorities NGOs’ cooperation III.2.3 Relationships between NGOs and governmental institutions /agencies III.3 Romania III.4 Ukraine III.4.1 General Characteristics III.4.2 Regional Dimension PART IV. Concluding Remarks IV.1 Hungary IV.1.1 Good Practices IV.1.2 Shortcomings IV.1.3 Recommendations IV.2 Moldova IV.2.1 Good practices/Positive developments IV.2.2 Shortcomings IV.2.3 Recommendations IV.3 ROMANIA IV.3.1 Good Practices IV.3.2 Shortcomings IV.3.3 Recommendations IV.4 UKRAINE IV.4.1 Good Practices IV.4.2 Shortcomings IV.4.3 Recommendations 4 Preface Minority rights, as well as a whole sphere of minority-majority relations, remain yet a poorly defined element of international law, also of interstate and domestic policies, which are often complicated by security concerns at both state and societal levels. Until recently, human rights debates, as well as legal system(s) of human rights protection, were focused on individual rights as a cornerstone of liberal democracy. This trend has been rooted in a tragic humankind experience of XX century, especially of World War II widely perceived as provoked by defending the “collective rights” of Sudeten Germans, used as a pretext. Consequently, the newly emerged post-war global organisation – the United Nations – in its famous Universal Declaration on Human Rights avoided any mentioning of collective rights, whereas basic legally binding human rights treaties usually mention the collective rights of minorities only vaguely, like “a person belonging to minority group” or “exercising [certain particular right] together with others [members of the group]”. Fears of providing collective rights for ethnic entities have been further aggravated by a confusion surrounding the very concept of peoples/nations self- determination, also by growing risks to keeping intact the established principles of states’ sovereignty and inviolability of their borders, challenged by protracted separatist conflicts, in particular, on the territories of post-soviet countries and in the Balkans. At the same time, already implemented minority rights policies in certain European countries present forms of protection that go far beyond the basic civil and political rights guaranteed to all individuals in a liberal democracy. Establishing minority self-governments; providing territorial or cultural autonomy to minority groups; the funding of activities and organisations of national minorities, also of bilingual education or mother-tongue instruction; introduction of particular forms of affirmative/positive action, including guaranteed representation in power bodies, consulting minorities by government agencies dealing with issues affecting minorities could be named as good practices and a source of inspiration for spreading these practices beyond national borders. The collapse of the Eastern European bloc dominated by the Soviet Union, and the disappearance of the latter put minority rights and inter-ethnic relations in Central Eastern Europe (CEE) high on the agenda of European and international organisations and institutions. Traditionally, these and related issues have been addressed by the CSCE/OSCE and the Council of Europe, with a much lower interest on the side of the European Union. The shift of attention towards the CEE region after 1989 was conditioned, by all means, by security concerns. In its activities, the OSCE operated mainly by using political instruments, of which the most important was the establishment in 1993 of the High Commissioner on National Minorities. This institution prepared a number of important documents, including the Lund Recommendations on the Effective Participation of National Minorities in Public Life (1999). The apparent weakness of this approach is the lack of enforcement mechanisms, thus leaving the implementation of this and other commendable recommendations to depend on a good will of governments of OSCE member states. The CoE did manage, after hot debates, to adopt the two legally binding instruments – the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) in 1992 and 1995, respectively. However, these mechanisms and instruments turned out not sufficient to ensure stronger national regimes for promoting ethno-cultural diversity and minority protection or to settle regional territorial disputes, in which ethno-cultural or religious differences and political mobilisation of certain groups contributed to eruption of violent conflicts and bloodshed. In contrast to the OSCE and the CoE, the EU as an entity has not paid much attention to human and minority rights, and had no codified minority policy of its own for quite a long time. As a result, in view of impending enlargement to the east it relied mostly on strategies and instruments elaborated by these two organisations. For example, the “Agenda 2000” elaborated 5 by the European Commission in 1997 has referred to the FCNM and the PACE Recommendation 1201 (1993) on national minorities as guidelines for prospective members. A growing EU’s attention to the protection of national minorities in CEE has been determined, first of all, by security concerns related to specific historical experience of the region, its majority-minority relations somewhat distinct from those of the European and Euro-Atlantic “West”, and the threats to all-European stability coming, presumably, from the perceived disposition to “cultural intolerance” and inter-ethnic violence exemplified in Balkan wars. Being preoccupied by those actual and potential threats, the EU ended up the acquiring of an unexpectedly strong leverage of its own. Its essence is application of a so-called “conditionality” policy enshrined in the “Copenhagen criteria” developed by the European Council in 1993. Among other accession criteria defined by this document, “respect for and protection of minorities” has been included. By all means, the EU minority protection policy in this respect has been guided by a rather pragmatic security approach that prioritises the consensual settlement of disputes instead of seeking the enforcement of some universal norms or standards, actually non-existing. This “security pragmatism” can be seen in changing accents and priorities over a period of preparation for the “Big Bang” enlargement of 2004: at its first stage, issues of effective minority protection largely addressed territorially concentrated minorities, as well as problems of their (territorial) autonomies, proceeding obviously from the fears of territorial disputes. Later on, the focus was shifted to Roma predicaments in CEE, regarded as threatening to cause a massive influx of Roma populations from CEE countries to more prosperous European West. Quite different treatment in this respect of the EU initial, “old” member states vis-à-vis accession countries gave rise to accusations of using “double standards” with regard to minority policies and inter-ethnic relations. In fact, the absence of an EU minority rights acquis is quite understandable, taking into account broad diversity of the existing national approaches and high sensitivity of minority issues in both old and new member states, thus making the enlarged EU unable to codify specific common standards. However, such institutions as the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament had skilfully used the Copenhagen criteria as the five main “reference points” to assess whether accession countries fulfilled the “minority criterion” and reached an effective protection of national minorities.