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Parliamentary Representation of Minorities in Hungary: Legal and Political Issues

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Hungary has launched one of Europe’s most comprehensive efforts to address the needs of its ethnic minorities, including unique provisions for self-government. This policy is motivated by the wish to set an example for neighboring countries with large Hungarian minorities, as well as by the need to satisfy the demands of Hungary’s own minorities. One puzzle that remains unresolved is how to assure ethnically based parliamentary representation at the national level. Except for the large Romani minority, all of Hungary’s twelve other recognized minorities are very small and some are geographically dispersed. (The Greek minority, for example, numbers fewer than 1,000.) Another factor is that Hungary’s 386-member parliament is unicameral, so that the addition of even one mandatory place for each of the thirteen recognized minorities could have unpredictable effects on the balance of power in governments that typically are made up of coalitions. There is also the question of how to balance the expectations of a large minority, the Roma, with those of the small minorities.

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Political Will: Romania's Path to Ethnic Accomodation

Author(s): / Language(s): English

This is a report of a discussion that would have been all but impossible to imagine ten years ago: Romanian and Hungarian political leaders from Romania sitting down to review and analyze their successful cooperation in building that country’s program for ethnic accord—and to consider what must be done to preserve that achievement. When the Project on Ethnic Relations began its work in Romania in 1991, it took almost a year to persuade Romanian officials and leaders of the ethnic Hungarian community just to gather around the same table, so deep was the mistrust. But once they did, it marked the beginning of a lengthy, and continuing, political process that makes Romania a uniquely successful example of what can be accomplished. The path was not, and is not, easy. It involved hard, often bitter, debates between Romanians and Hungarians, intensive political bargaining and tradeoffs, and many setbacks and disappointments. And yet a group of key leaders, although deeply loyal to their own communities, saw that compromises were necessary. They were willing to take political risks to realize their vision of interethnic harmony. Any interethnic accommodation is inherently fragile. It is easily upset by political opportunism, economic difficulties, or outside influences. So Romania’s accomplishments are neither complete nor permanent. The debate over interethnic arrangements will go on indefinitely—as it should in any democracy.

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Macedonia's Inter-Ethnic Coalition: The First Six Months

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The idea of hosting a meeting among members of the Macedonian governing coalition (the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia [SDSM], the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the opposition and representatives of the international community just six months after the formation of the new government, originated in Lucerne, Switzerland. There, during the third in a series of regional dialogues devoted to the issue of “Albanians and Their Neighbors,” representatives of Macedonia’s new coalition government asked the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) to hold this meeting. Intended in part as an evaluation of the coalition’s progress and as a vehicle for honest and open communication among all parliamentary parties, the meeting could perhaps not have come at a more interesting time in recent Macedonian politics. Just weeks before the meeting – made possible by the generous support and cooperation of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Embassy in Macedonia—former Prime Minister and leader of the largest ethnic Macedonian opposition party, Ljubco Georgievski publicly disavowed the Ohrid Framework Agreement—an internationally brokered truce that in 2001 helped to bring peace to a country on the brink of civil war. (Georgievski was a signatory to the Framework Agreement.) Days later, Arben Xhaferi, leader of the largest Albanian opposition party, threatened to resign, issuing a moratorium on behalf of his party. Also a signatory to the agreement, Xhaferi said his party was taking a “time-out” in opposition to the government’s failure to adequately implement the agreement.

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Macedonia's Inter-Ethnic Coalition: The First Year

Author(s): / Language(s): English

When, at the request of members of the Macedonian government, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) agreed more than a year ago to host a roundtable meeting for representatives of the country’s coalition [the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)] and opposition parties, we scarcely anticipated the demand for this type of forum. Indeed, what started as a single meeting (held in Mavrovo, Macedonia on May 10-11, 2003) has since become the “Mavrovo Process.” Launched by PER in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Embassy in Macedonia, the Process is designed to facilitate communication not only between members of the government and the opposition, but also within the coalition itself. These discussions, which are not for public attribution, provide participants a rare opportunity to offer their vision for Macedonia’s future and to candidly assess the government’s performance in implementing the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement—an internationally brokered truce that is credited with ending the country’s bloody albeit brief ethnic conflict. The participants at the May roundtable agreed that all parties should reconvene under PER auspices roughly once every six months, whereas members of the coalition should meet every three months. Two meetings have since taken place. The first, a discussion among the coalition parties, occurred in September; the second meeting, held in December, featured participants from the senior-most levels of the Macedonian government and opposition as well as representatives of the international community. While themes from the September discussion are referenced herein, it is the latter meeting which forms the basis for this report.

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Albanians and Their Neighbors: Moving toward Real Communication

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Relations between Albanians and their neighbors dominate politics in the Balkans and pose a continuing problem for European and Euro- Atlantic stability. More than a decade after the wars in ex-Yugoslavia first erupted, the so-called “Albanian Question” remains unresolved, with interethnic struggles in Kosovo, South Serbia, and Macedonia. The series on Albanians and Their Neighbors, launched by the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) in 2000, is a unique regional undertaking that brings together almost every significant ethnic Albanian political actor from the Balkans with non-Albanian counterparts from Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Greece, and the international community. This is a report of the fourth gathering, which took place in Lucerne, Switzerland in May 2004. (Three earlier meetings took place in Budapest and in Athens in 2000, and in Lucerne in 2002.) These PER meetings provide the venue where many of the most critical high-level discussions and negotiations take place between Albanians and their neighbors—as well as with key players from the international community. Since 2000, PER has also convened regular follow-up roundtables in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro, with the aim of promoting practical measures toward interethnic accord. (Reports on these PER efforts are available at www.per-usa.org.) The May 2004 roundtable was noteworthy for the participants’ newly constructive approach to the question of Kosovo and positive reports on interethnic accommodation in Macedonia and Montenegro. The roundtable also made possible an additional PER effort: a face-to-face meeting in Pristina the following month between Kosovo Albanian and Serb political leaders, their first since the violence in Kosovo in March 2004.

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Macedonia’s Interethnic Coalition: Solidifying Gains

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The first day of this two-day meeting was attended by representatives of the parties making up the governing coalition: the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM), the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Democratic League of Bosnjaks in Macedonia, the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia, the Democratic Party of Turks in Macedonia, and the United Party of the Roma in Macedonia. They were joined on the second day by their colleagues from the opposition parties, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party of Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), the Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP), and the Liberal Party (LP). The roundtable began with a discussion of what has been achieved by the interethnic governing coalition, and the impact of their accomplishments on the country. The international participants praised Macedonia, which, they said, had become an example for the region in improving interethnic relations. Indeed, they noted, recently some leaders from Kosovo have been examining the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) as one model of what could be accomplished with self-restraint and political will. In their turn, the participants from Macedonia stressed the benefits that they derive from the Mavrovo meetings in clarifying the positions of the respective political partners, anticipating future problems and solutions, and in providing guidelines on how to communicate with the media and the public. The participants agreed that the most urgent current topic is decentralization. While decentralization was on the agenda of each of the previous meetings, said one participant, we managed to avoid sufficient discussion of it. This time, even though decentralization is not the main topic on the agenda, it is where we now need to focus our attention.

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Macedonia: The Next Stage

Author(s): / Language(s): English

The fourth round of discussions in the Mavrovo process was held in mid-December 2004, at a moment of great challenge for Macedonia. A new government, necessitated by the former prime minister’s resignation on November 15 and his public allegations of corruption against a government member, was confirmed by parliament on the very day the Mavrovo meeting was to convene. Nonetheless, the new prime minister and his government elected to attend the Mavrovo meetings, and use them to foster open and frank discussion among the coalition partners in the government including the parties of the smaller ethnic communities and with opposition parties. In comparison to earlier sessions of the Mavrovo process, these discussions were characterized by a significant increase in the proportion of time and attention devoted by participants to what they described as “constructive criticism” and problem-solving. Although the first session of discussions was abbreviated because of the government’s need to convene its first, organizational meeting following parliamentary confirmation, this round of the Mavrovo process covered a number of important and sensitive issues facing the new leadership team. Participants discussed their understanding of the nature of representation and accountability, from the perspective of both government and opposition. Attention was devoted to the meaning and implications of “equal representation” as a principle embedded in the Ohrid Framework Agreement and as a practical goal of government policy. There was substantial discussion of the relationship between political parties, their leaders, and the government, and its crucial effect on government authority and performance. Discussion turned several times to the importance of improving the performance of the economy for resolving social and political problems, and therefore its importance for the new government. Improving the functioning of the electoral system was the focus of a substantial amount of discussion, prompted by the upcoming local elections, scheduled for March 13, 2005. Participants put forward a number of specific issues and problems for inclusion on the government policy agenda. Participants also engaged one another in candid discussion of sensitive and contentious issues concerning the integrity of electoral processes in Macedonia. These discussions led participants to consider the adoption of a “code of conduct” to guide parties in the upcoming and future elections.

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Kosovo and the Region Prepare for Change: Relations, Responsible Governance, and Regional Security

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Six years after Kosovo was placed under the interim administration of the United Nations, 2005 has been called a decisive year for the province. The first indication that this is indeed the case came in March, when the UN Secretary General appointed a Special Envoy to conduct a comprehensive review of the so-called democratic “standards” mandated for Kosovo. Following this review, and depending on its outcome, in the fall of 2005, a formal process for resolving Kosovo’s status will be launched by the UN. In early 2005, while the international community appeared to be moving forward on the Kosovo issue, authorities in Belgrade and Pristina showed some signs of breaking their ongoing stalemate over official communication. Throughout the spring, reports of a potential meeting between Serbian President Boris Tadic and Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova appeared in the media, but an actual encounter failed to materialize. With Kosovo Serbs continuing to boycott provisional institutions of selfgovernment in Pristina, the positions of Serbs and Albanians over Kosovo appeared as entrenched as ever. ###While realizing that the large question of Kosovo’s status will only be resolved through a process established by the United Nations, the Project on Ethnic Relations nonetheless judged that an informal and off-the-record dialogue among Albanians, Serbs, leaders of neighboring countries, and representatives of international organizations could be of value at this time. In July 2005, in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, PER convened a roundtable discussion under the title “Kosovo and the Region Prepare for Change: Relations, Responsible Governance, and Regional Security.” The agenda for the discussion included three broad topics: the regional implications of Kosovo’s future status, possibilities for high-level dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, and relations between Kosovo’s Albanian and Serb communities.

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Political Uses of Anti-Semitism

Author(s): Konstanty Gebert / Language(s): English

The endurance of anti-Semitism as a cultural theme in Central and Eastern Europe is particularly striking considering the near-destruction of Jewish populations during the Second World War. While there is a vast literature on anti-Semitism past and present, less has been said concerning anti-Semitism as a deliberately deployed political weapon, and less still about its use in the post-Communist states. A number of questions can be posed on the political uses of anti-Semitism in the region: Why do anti-Semitic political practices continue to resonate with the public? How did they survive the transitions to post-communist, democratic politics? What enables political actors to employ anti-Semitism as a weapon, and what are their methods? Is there any defense? To explore these issues and seek practical responses to political anti-Semitism in the region and in Romania, on September 16, 2005, the Project on Ethnic Relations Regional Center for Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe organized a roundtable discussion in Bucharest for senior political leaders, intellectuals, and journalists. These participants took on topics ranging from the historical roots of anti-Semitism, to the role of civil society and of the state in combating anti-Semitism, to the controversial issue of Romania's Emergency Decree 31, which outlaws forms of anti-Semitic discourse, including Holocaust denial. This report documents the discussions at the Bucharest roundtable. Following PER's usual practice, participants are not identified by name in the text. Konstanty Gebert, a journalist at Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, is the author of this report, which has not been reviewed by other participants, and for which PER takes full responsibility. The text was edited by PER staff.

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Reviving Interethnic Political Dialogue in South Serbia

Author(s): Livia Plaks,Alex Grigor'ev / Language(s): English

It is worth noting that after Kosovo’s proclamation of independence and the protests and violence which resulted in Serbia, South Serbia is the only area which has so far remained quiet and calm. By not organizing protests or celebrations, both local Albanian and Serb leaders exercised the caution needed to keep their communities from imploding or exacerbating the already high tensions of this momentous occasion. In fact, this caution shows that the local leaders have begun to realize the importance of peaceful coexistence, restraint, and a moderate approach to politics. That said, an insufficient political will in Belgrade for resolving many of these outstanding issues continues to frustrate local leaders. As you will read in the following text, promises are often made but follow through is less common. To be fair, results from these commitments are slowly coming to fruition, but their speed and efficacy remains deficient. Frustration is felt not only by the Albanians, Serbs, and Roma in South Serbia but by the international community as well. Since much of the progress in South Serbia has been a direct result of interest and pressure by the international community, this weariness is a troubling development. For the foreseeable future, the dynamics between Belgrade and Pristina will dominate headlines and international policy, which is why it is more important than ever for civil society and non-government agencies to remain engaged on other interethnic and intra-ethnic issues affecting Serbia. As is often the case in the Balkans, interethnic relations are far more complex than they seem, and tensions in one locality often have a way of spilling over into another. Without addressing many of these problems, majority-minority relations will remain faulty, and interethnic tension will persist. By engaging instead of ignoring these issues, PER will continue to work for a better and peaceful future for Southeastern Europe.

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Developing a Comprehensive Minority Policy in Montenegro

Author(s): Livia Plaks,Alex Grigor'ev / Language(s): English

Montenegro remained deficient in its minority policy legislation. The country’s first Minority Law remained stagnant in draft form despite the comments and encouragement of outside reviewers such as the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. The problem was a lack of political consensus on several contentious points, and an inability to break the political stalemate and move forward. To address the specific issue of the political stalemate over the Minority Law as well as Montenegro’s general deficiency in minority policy legislation, in July 2005, with funding from the Global Opportunities Fund of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, PER launched a three-year initiative devoted to helping Montenegro develop and strengthen its state policies toward ethnic minorities, and in the process galvanize the authorities to show more political will in helping minorities in the country. Success was achieved early on in the project. In May 2006, Montenegro finally adopted the Minority Law and opened a new chapter in the history of majority-minority relations in Montenegro. But the Montenegrin path to minority accommodation was not without its setbacks. In July 2006, two key provisions of the Minority Law were declared unconstitutional by the Montenegrin Constitutional Court. The rejection of these provisions, which guaranteed seats in parliament and local assemblies for representatives of ethnic minorities, was perceived as a let-down by many minority leaders and continues to be an increasing source of tension between them and the majority. Mutually beneficial majority-minority relations have been the core of Montenegro’s successful model of interethnic accord. Damage to these relations will be the destabilizing factor in this multi-ethnic country.

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State Policies toward the Roma in Macedonia

Author(s): Allen H. Kassof,Livia Plaks / Language(s): English

Of all the problems that have affected Central and Southeastern Europe, that of relations between Romani communities and the majority populations has been among the most widespread and persistent. Macedonia, which is the focus of this report, has made great progress, showing tolerance toward its minority communities, including the Roma, and generosity toward both ethnic Albanian and Romani refugees from the conflict in Kosovo. Among the Macedonian government’s main domestic tasks at present is that of formulating a comprehensive policy toward its Romani community. In addition, the status of Romani refugees must be addressed by international players as well as by the governments of Macedonia and its neighbors. Macedonia, which is seeking membership in the European Union, will have to fulfill the long list of prerequisites demanded of all candidate countries, including the development of comprehensive state policy toward the Roma, a requirement that is part of “Agenda 2000” of the European Union. (“Agenda 2000” sets forth the process of reform and enlargement of the EU.) Whether Romani representatives have real decision-making power with respect to the situation of their own communities will also be considered in EU accession. Indeed, if the Macedonian application for admission is to succeed, policies must be developed on the basis of a partnership between the government and the Romani community. In order to discuss these topics and to encourage a Roma-government partnership, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) organized a meeting in Skopje, Macedonia, on October 13 and 14, 2000.

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Evoluţia populaţiei maghiare din România. Rezultate şi probleme metodologice.

Author(s): Tamás Kiss,István Csata / Language(s): Romanian

The present study aims to present the evolution of the Hungarian population in Romania. Thus, the results of the study and the methodological problems that emerged as a result of the application of standard demographic methods to minority populations (in this case the Hungarian population) are presented in detail.

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Analiza comparată a identităţii minorităţilor maghiare din Bazinul Carpatic.

Author(s): Valér Veres / Language(s): Romanian

The sociological study analyzes the characteristics of the national identity of the Hungarian communities in five countries, while interpreting the indirect effects that social, economic and political changes have had on the identity of these communities.

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The Albanian Aromanians´ Awakening: Identity Politics and Conflicts in Post-Communist Albania

Author(s): Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers / Language(s): English

Today, many thousands of Aromanians (also known as „Vlachs“) live quite compactly in Northern Greece, Macedonia (FYROM) and southern Albania; and there are still traces of Vlach-Aromanian and Aromanian populations in Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and Romania. In Albania, they were recently estimated at about 200,000 by the English scholar Tom Winnifrith. In Albanian communist times, Aromanians were not recognised as a separate minority group, officially considered to be almost completely assimilated. However, in the early post-communist transition period, a vivid Aromanian ethnic movement emerged in Albania and it became part of a recent global Balkan Aromanian initiative. The Albanian Aromanians’ new emphasis of their ethnicity can be seen as a pragmatic strategy of adjustment to successes and failures in the Albanian political transition and to globalisation. It is exactly the re-vitalisation of the conflict between followers of a pro-Greek and a pro-Romanian Aromanian identification that serves to broaden the scope of options for potential exploitation.

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DPC POLICY NOTE 16: The West’s Dirty Mostar Deal. Deliverables in the Absence of a BiH Policy

Author(s): Bodo Weber / Language(s): English

Last June, the ambassadors of the European Union and the US to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), together with the UK ambassador to BiH, struck a deal on Mostar with the main Croat and Bosniak parties, the Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ BiH) and the Party of Democratic Action (SDA). The agreement ended a ten-year deadlock on implementation of a Constitutional Court of BiH (CC BiH) ruling that suspended the Election Law of BiH and provisions in the Mostar city statute that regulated local elections on the grounds they were discriminatory, and returned the right to vote to the Herzegovinian city’s citizens, who on December 20 will vote for the first time in 12 years to elect their local representatives. The deal was praised by the West as a major breakthrough, a long-awaited return of local elites to a policy of compromise, and even an expression of a “thriving democracy.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Законодавство та підходи іноземних країн щодо розв’язання проблем реалізації прав, свобод і обов’язків громадян, які належать до Ромської національної меншини

Author(s): V. O. Bakalchuk,Svitlana V. Dubova,Yulia Tyshchenko,J. B. Kaplan / Language(s): Ukrainian

General context: According to the 2001 All-Ukrainian Census, the number of Roma in Ukraine is 47,000. According to unofficial estimates, the country can be home to communities of 200,000 to 400,000 Roma, and these communities have varying degrees of integration into Ukrainian society. The Roma community remains one of the most vulnerable social groups in Ukrainian society, despite the completion of the Strategy for the Protection and Integration of the Roma National Minority into Ukrainian Society until 20202 (2020 Strategy) and the Action Plan for its implementation. The new strategy for Roma integration was approved by the Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of July 28, 2021 № 866-r. "On approval of the Strategy to promote the realization of the rights and opportunities of persons belonging to the Roma national minority in Ukrainian society until 2030" (Strategy 2030). The 2030 Strategy Action Plan is being developed. The need to develop an effective policy for the integration of the Roma community is in line with Ukraine's European integration aspirations, and is also part of the practice of implementing the best European experience in the process of optimizing state policy on minority communities.

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Utilizarea limbii materne la nivelul unităților administrative locale. Estimare Costuri

Author(s): István Horváth,Zsombor Csata,István Gergő Székely / Language(s): Romanian

The study aims to operationalize and estimate the costs of implementing the rights of citizens belonging to a national minority to use their mother tongue in public administration. Identifies the areas of activity in which these obligations are generated, the forms of institutional organization through which the local administrative units manage them, the approximate volume of situations managed and the approximate additional costs compared to the situation where the local administration would use only the state language. The study is based on fieldwork that took place between July and October 2019, in which we used a complex survey tool and conducted interviews with local council representatives belonging to localities where the proportion of Hungarian residents exceeds 20%. The results show that the implementation of bilingual communication in local and county administrations involves significant costs, so - at least from the perspective of distributive justice - it is unfair for these costs to be borne exclusively by local governments.

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The Roma in Hungary: Socio-economic status, human rights protection, and migratory dynamics. An annotated bibliography of recent research

Author(s): Melinda Szabó / Language(s): English

A tremendous amount of books, anthologies, articles, and conference papers on the Roma population have appeared in the last few decades. This annotated bibliography was compiled as background material for a roundtable discussion organized by the Center for Policy Studies at the request of the Canadian Embassy in Hungary and Citizenship Immigration Canada (CIC). The roundtable discussion Roma in Hungary: socio-economic status, human rights protection, and migratory dynamics was held at CEU on September 20, 2006.

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Persistent Segregation of Roma in the Czech Education System

Author(s): Miroslava Kokyová,Martina Sadivová / Language(s): English

Significant deficiencies in law and practice with regard to the pedagogical-psychological examination of Romani children continue to encourage wrongful placement of Romani children in schools and classes with a substandard curriculum that limits their education options and employment potential. Pedagogical-Psychological Counselling Centres continue to work according to the same methodology as before 2005 and there are no legal requirements for the repeated examination of children placed in practical schools unless parents so request, and no comprehensive assessment of expert opinions issued by pedagogical-psychological centres. Most Romani children who enter practical schools remain there until they reach grade 9 and leave the school system.

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