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TABLE OF CONTENTSPreface // The Background // National Minorities in Romania: The Constitutional Framework // Undermining Constitutional Guarantees Through Legislation // The 1995 Education Law (NO. 84/1995) // The Education Decree of 1997 // Summary of the Discussion on the Use of Minority Languages // in Education in Romania // University Education in the Hungarian Language // List of Participants
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On December 14-15, 2001, senior Yugoslav, Serbian and Montenegrin politicians, as well as Serb leaders from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, met with political leaders and high-level officials from Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania and the United States. Senior officials from the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN) also took part. The meeting, entitled “The New Yugoslavia and Its Neighbors: A Regional Dialogue,” was held in Belgrade and marked the start of a new Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) initiative, called “Serbs and Their Neighbors.” This new PER series complements another, started in April 2000, called “Albanians and Their Neighbors.”Their goal is to sustain a serious regional discussion about the two most pressing ethno-political issues in Europe today.The meeting was held one year after the democratic change took place in Belgrade. The destructive regime of Slobodan Milosevic was toppled, beginning a new era not only for Yugoslavia but for the entire region. Yugoslav democratic forces had endured a decade of grave conditions and are now trying to lead the country back into the European family.
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This is a report of two discussions that took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, on June 29-30 and December 18, 2001, respectively, between Bulgarian government and party leaders and the leaders of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), Bulgaria’s predominantly ethnic Turkish party. Bulgaria is home to one of the most unusual interethnic arrangements in Southeastern Europe. The leadership of the large (almost 10 per cent of the population) Turkish minority, which might be expected by some to be militant in pressing for special status and protections along ethnic lines, has instead announced its intention to pursue a civic model as the basis for its efforts to improve the conditions in which that country’s Turks and Pomaks (Bulgarian-speaking Muslims) live. To Americans and others accustomed to the notion of a social order that treats its members as individual citizens first and only then as members of ethnic groups, this will sound quite familiar. But in the complex ethnic worlds of this region, it is a unique exception that merits special attention. For example, Hungarians living outside Hungary, who make up Central Europe’s largest minority, conduct highly organized political campaigns in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia, with the aim of maintaining and strengthening Hungarian cultural identity. And the Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia, and south Serbia have gone to war with their neighbors over the issue of their rights and status.
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On April 7 and 8, 2000, senior Albanian politicians from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro met with leaders of the democratic opposition in Serbia and leaders of the Kosovar Serb community; other political leaders from Macedonia and Montenegro; and representatives from Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, the United States, the Council of Europe, the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, the OSCE, the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations. This unprecedented meeting, which was held in Budapest, Hungary, marked the start of a major initiative by the Project on Ethnic Relations on “Albanians and Their Neighbors.” It is aimed at maintaining a region-wide, high-level dialogue on the most explosive ethnic-political issue in Europe today. This report captures and records the main theme of this opening discussion: the conflicting hopes and fears of diverse ethnic communities during a period of rapid and often violent change in the Balkans. Three issues dominated the meeting: the current and future status of Kosovo and its impact on the politics of the region; interethnic arrangements in Montenegro and Macedonia and the relations of Albanians with the majority populations in those republics; and whether Albanian leaders in the region aspire to the creation of a “Greater Albania.”
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The interest of the Project of Ethnic Relations (PER) in the issue of Albanians and their neighbors goes back many years. In 1992, PER convened its first seminar for leading Albanian intellectuals from the region, to learn about their views on the interethnic situation in the Balkans. It was one of several consultations PER held with major ethnic communities in the Balkans at that time. In 1995, at a PER roundtable in Belgrade, PER brought together vice presidents of the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Democratic League of Kosovo, thus breaking a four-year self-imposed boycott by Kosovar Albanians on contacts with Belgrade. In 1997, PER brought Kosovo Albanian leaders and Belgrade officials to a landmark meeting in New York City, where they worked out a platform for future negotiations, but this process was interrupted when armed clashes broke out in 1998. After the 1999 Kosovo war, PER renewed its efforts in the form of a series of regional discussions for senior politicians from the Balkans under the heading “Albanians and Their Neighbors.” The first roundtable was organized in April 2000 in Budapest, with the assistance of the Government of Hungary. The second meeting took place in Athens in December of that year with support from the Greek Government. The third roundtable, which is the subject of this report, took place in Lucerne in November 2003, with the support and cooperation of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
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PER has been mediating interethnic disputes in the Balkans for over a decade, working closely with political leaders. The number of women occupying senior elective positions, although still disproportionately small (except in Kosovo where a quota is mandated by the international community), is nevertheless significant and growing. Against considerable odds, a group of exceptional women politicians, many of them young, has emerged—holding forth a promise of fresh approaches within this political neighborhood. Most are well-educated and have enjoyed significant international exposure. But they face exceptional challenges. Despite the lip service to women’s equality, political activities and public decision-making remain male-dominated arenas. PER does not subscribe to the cliché that women have a larger stake than men in avoiding violent conflict. Indeed, it would be naïve to suggest that women politicians automatically bring moderation to interethnic issues. Rather, the promise of women politicians lies elsewhere: their very participation introduces a new dimension—gender—to the list of variables that the political system must take into account in reckoning with constituencies.
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This essay on the status of the ethnic Hungarian minorities in Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Serbia, was inspired by a meeting on that subject that was organized on June 25-26, 2004 in Sinaia, Romania. The event was sponsored by the new Project on Ethnic Relations Regional Center for Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. The Center, with headquarters in Bucharest and with an additional office in Tirgu Mures, is a branch of the U.S.-based Project on Ethnic Relations (PER), which since 1991 has been the leading private-sector organization working on problems of interethnic relations in Romania and in the region. The meeting took place under the title Central and East European Governments and Cooperation with the Hungarian Communities: Efforts, Accomplishments, Failures. It brought together Hungarian and non-Hungarian leaders from the region to discuss the evolution of their relations since the end of the communist period and to consider how they might be further improved.
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In the late summer and fall of 2004 the news from Kosovo was dominated by the run-up to the province’s parliamentary elections, which were held in October, and the question of whether the Kosovo Serbs would take part. While Serbian president Boris Tadic encouraged Kosovo’s Serbs to participate in the elections (though at the very last moment), prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, arguing that Kosovo’s provisional government had failed to protect the Serb community, strongly urged a boycott, and, in the event, on October 23 less than one percent of the Serbs living in Kosovo turned out to vote. On the heels of this development, which seemed to promise continued difficulties in the relationship between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, the Project on Ethnic Relations (both through its Princeton headquarters and its Center for Central, East, and Southeast Europe in Bucharest) together with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organized a roundtable meeting on “Kosovo 2005: Assuring Security for the Neighborhood.” The meeting, which was held in Bucharest, took up issues of Kosovo’s political dynamics, including Serb participation in Kosovo’s provisional institutions of self-government, implementation of United Nations standards for Kosovo, ways to approach the issue of Kosovo’s status, relations between Belgrade and Pristina and the impact of developments in Kosovo on regional security. At the time of the meeting Kosovo’s new coalition government had not yet been formed, and neighboring states sought a chance to communicate with leaders from both Pristina and Belgrade about how resolution of the province’s political status might move forward, and how the open issue of Kosovo affects a region that is eager for increased stability and, ultimately, European integration.
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In June 2005, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) and the Embassy of Switzerland in Macedonia organized the fifth roundtable in the so-called “Mavrovo Process” series. These roundtables are an occasion for members of the Macedonian governing coalition (the Together for Macedonia coalition headed by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI)), the parliamentary opposition and representatives of the international community to assess the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) and evaluate the coalition’s progress. The discussions also provide a forum for honest and open communication—off the record—among all parliamentary parties. The Mavrovo roundtables are always important events in Macedonian politics. They provide a forum wherein difficult and sometimes contentious issues of Macedonia’s daily politics can be discussed in a neutral space, free of everyday political pressures. In fact, coffee breaks, lunches and dinners between the sessions often turn out to be just as important as the plenary sessions themselves, as these provide chances for the participants to continue their discussions and build the trust necessary for reaching compromises. The Mavrovo series has also become a major channel for the political parties of Macedonia’s smaller ethnic communities. They use this unique opportunity to present their case to the other coalition members and to receive a sympathetic hearing.
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The December 2005 Mavrovo roundtable came at a historic moment for Macedonia. Having received a positive evaluation on Macedonia from the European Commission in November, the EU’s Council of Ministers was set to grant the country EU candidate status—a major milestone for a state still dealing with the consequences of a violent ethnic conflict in 2001. However, on December 12, the day before the beginning of the Mavrovo talks, the news from Brussels was that the Council, troubled by such setbacks as the recent French and Dutch popular rejection of a new European constitution and the continuing stalemate in budget negotiations, might vote to delay a decision on Macedonia’s candidacy until the next EU Presidency. This potential uncertainty over the country’s EU prospects sent shockwaves through Macedonia’s political scene. While the potential for a delay in Macedonia’s EU candidacy dominated much of the discussion at Mavrovo, other questions, such as the upcoming 2006 parliamentary elections and the implementation of certain reforms related to the Ohrid Framework Agreement, were also significant topics of discussion. Even these issues were seen by many participants as highly connected to the developments in Brussels, however, and Macedonia’s EU candidacy returned time and again in the discussions as the dominant outside factor shaping the country’s immediate future. This Mavrovo roundtable, the sixth since the series began in 2003, was characterized by a high degree of consensus. No participant disputed that European integration should be one of the state’s top priorities; to the contrary, some opposition leaders claimed that their parties, rather than the current government, should in fact be credited with paving the way to the country’s expected EU candidacy. The question of election irregularities was also an important agenda item on which there was broad agreement, with many participants supporting tougher penalties for violators, as well as reforms to the election law and the makeup of the election commission to improve the quality of the campaigns and the voting process itself.
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The future of Kosovo has been a matter of grave international concern for more than a decade. The unresolved interethnic dispute between Serbs and Albanians and the struggle between Belgrade and Pristina over whether Kosovo would become independent or remain part of Serbia has been the most intractable problem remaining from the historic breakup of former Yugoslavia, threatening the stability of the entire region. For more than a decade, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) has played a key background role in efforts to ease ethnic tensions in the Western Balkans between the Albanian populations of that region and their neighbors. As early as 1992, PER arranged a roundtable in New York City where Serb and Kosovo Albanian intellectuals and social scientists discussed their troubled relations. In 1995, PER was one of three cooperating organizations that convened a roundtable in Belgrade bringing together representatives of the Serbian Socialist party and other ruling and opposition parties with Kosovo Albanian political leaders. (The Albanians broke their long-standing boycott of contacts with official Belgrade in order to participate.) PER then continued to work in the background, conducting numerous off-the-record dialogues and informal negotiations. In 1997 it finally succeeded in arranging a landmark meeting in New York City that brought together senior political leaders from Belgrade and Pristina—their last contacts, as it would turn out, before the war and the NATO intervention of 1999. Following the war in Kosovo, between 2000 and 2005, PER convened five international roundtables on “Albanians and Their Neighbors.” There, decision makers from all the countries of the region as well as from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe, and other key international entities took up critical questions of the day and debated alternatives for the future. PER followed up these large regional gatherings with country roundtables in Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo to address their specific problems. This report concerns the meetings about Kosovo that took place in Pristina from 2001-2005.
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During the last decade in the Balkans new interethnic dynamics have been created by various regional settlements. Many of these settlements not only changed the dynamics but created new ethnic ma-jorities and minorities. Overnight former ethnic minorities became majorities. This new set of circum-stances requires changes in the way these societies are governed. This is especially true for Kosovo, the status of which the international community is determined to resolve in 2007. These factors and the timing prompted the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) to organize in cooperation with the Hungari-an Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the support of the U.S. State Department through a USAID grant, in Budapest on December 2-3, 2006, a regional roundtable of political leaders from Southeastern Europe. This regional roundtable discussion, the eighth such endeavor organized by PER between 2000-2006 was titled New Majorities and Minorities in the Changing Balkans. The meeting brought to-gether political leaders, decision-makers and officials from the region, the U.S. State Department, the European Union, the Council of Europe, and OSCE to discuss the changing dynamics of interethnic rela-tions in the area as the international community prepares to resolve the issue of Kosovo’s status. One of the main purposes of the roundtable was to encourage the region’s policy makers to think construc-tively about the new reality that is being created in the region during the last decade by various Balkan settlements and about changes in policies that this new reality requires.
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An earthquake in the Balkans sent shockwaves through the entire world. The earthquake was the violence emanating from the 1999 conflict between Serbia and its southern province of Kosovo. Some say the violence was due to the multiyear discrimination and eventual efforts at ethnic cleansing of the Albanians by the Serbian government of Milosevic. Others have said that the violence started with the appearance and activities of the then shadow Kosovo Liberation Army. In any case, the international community eventually got involved and Serbia and Montenegro (as well as Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo) received more than a month of intensive bombing by NATO forces against military targets (with countless civilian casualties as well). A decade has passed since those events and the reality on the ground looks different. Kosovo has now been recognized by over 50 countries as a new state and is trying to enter the path of belonging to the Euro-Atlantic structures. However, there is still a serious international presence on the ground which is mostly meant to protect and encourage the Serbian community to be part of Kosovo’s life even if not recognizing its current status. Relations between Belgrade and Pristina are at best frozen if not downright hostile. The greatest challenge for all inside Kosovo as well as the international community is how to deal with the relations between Kosovo institutions and the Serbian community.
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What has brought Macedonia back into the global spotlight? Basically: the police operation in Kumanovo, 9 and 10 May 2015, which catapulted Macedonia into media headlines around the world. This large-scale operation against what officials identified as a terrorist group (partly infiltrating from Kosovo) ignited fears of fresh internal ethnic clashes like those of 2001, when Macedonian security forces were fighting ethnic Albanian rebels. In 2001 the country was on the verge of a civil war, which was prevented thanks to the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, ultimately a power-sharing agreement. The concern in 2015 has been whether inter-ethnic clashes might erupt again.
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As opposed to earlier years when cases of violence, intolerance and hate speech directed towards Serbs were mostly registered in the areas of refugees return, it is noticeable that from 2012 on, such cases have spread throughout Croatia. What significantly contributed to this trend, which is increasingly assuming revisi¬onist right-wing features, was the socio-political context which became increasingly radicalized since the coming to power of the coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Croatia’s accession to the European Union.A new awakening of nationalist euphoria, as well as the mobili¬sation of a part of the veterans’ population, began with the cu¬rrent government’s decision to initiate full implementation of the Law on the use of languages and letters of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia, which stipulates the equal use of mi¬nority language in communities where minorities make up more than 33 percent of population. Placement of the first bilingual plaques on state institutions in Vukovar in early 2013, caused re¬sistance of the veterans’ association Headquarter for Defence of Croatian Vukovar. The Vukovar veterans’ protest, which turned into a protest against the rights of Serbs, eventually brought on an increased level of hate speech and of ethnic intolerance in public space.
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The analysis that follows certainly calls into question the soundness of a generalized assessment made by the Croatian authorities of the years 2011 and 2012, specifi cally that “[ ... ] in the Re public of Croatia there is no increased threat to members of national minorities” and that “[ ... ] there were no identifi ed elements which would indicate that there is organized violence against members of ethnic minorities, but in all cases individual incidents were recorded, which do not indicate a threat to national minorities in a certain area or during a certain time period.” Specifi cally, during 2012 the caucus of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS ) in the Croatian Parliament and the Serb National Council (SNV) received information about an increased number of cases of ethnically motivated violence and intolerance towards members of the Serb community and their institutions.
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The Croatian Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities, adopted in 2002 with a two-thirds majority of all MPs, stipulates special rights and freedoms of persons belonging to national minorities in order to enable their active and effective participation in public affairs and public life at all levels. Minorities in Croatia are thus guaranteed the right to proportional representation in the state administration, police and judicial bodies. This right is to be exercised using population fi gures from offi cial census results. According to the latest 2011 census, minorities comprise 7.67%, and Serbs 4.36%, of the total population of Croatia.
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Macedonia is a country in deep trouble. There is a climate of mistrust between all the political parties; intolerance of minority groups is increasing and fear is also generated by the all-pervasive control of the main governing party. In 2009 the European Commission recommended that a date be set for accession negotiations to start, but since then the country's efforts to join the EU ( and NATO ) have been blocked.
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This report explores the political economy of ethnic relations in Macedonia – the “other conflict” of diminishing resources and collapsing lifestyles which so often goes unnoticed. … It looks at a region of 52,000 people in Western Macedonia, inhabited by 50 percent ethnic Albanians and 40 percent ethnic Macedonians. Like much of Macedonia, Kicevo (Albanian: Kercova) has a deeply rooted tradition of ethnic coexistence. There has been no communal violence in this region for decades, and it remained peaceful even at the height of last year’s fighting. Yet it exhibits a diversity of economic and social patterns among its communities which seems programmed to generate inter-ethnic suspicion and fear.
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ESI has spent the past year studying economic trends in the region and looking for development potential. Most of the news is bad. Only a handful of the old socially owned enterprises have made a successful transition to private ownership. The new private sector is small in scale, dominated by shops, cafés and basic services, and can absorb only a fraction of the labour shed by industry. Commercial agriculture is on the decline, and family farms do not produce the revenues for reinvesting in machinery. We estimate that no more than 33 percent of the working-age population are employed, compared to the EU average of 63 percent. This is the development trap at the heart of the Western Balkans. Regions with this economic profile are not attractive to private investors. Nor do they generate significant revenues of their own to support public investments in development. Unless there is a concerted effort by central governments and their international partners to invest in overcoming the barriers to economic growth, the region will continue to fall further behind.
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