News from ECMI InfoChannel

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched an offensive against Ukraine simultaneously in the north, east and south of the country. Thus, Russian troops expanded their temporary occupation of Ukrainian territories, which began in 2014. Millions of Ukrainian citizens, including indigenous peoples and national minorities, found themselves in the temporarily occupied territories. Residents of those regions are suffering a lack of food, utilities and medical care, and live under the pressure of the Russian troops, namely are deprived of the right to express their opposition to the invasion by detaining, intimidating, torturing and executing. Under such conditions, the usual policy of diversity management is reduced to the struggle for the life of every citizen. This blog piece is dedicated to the current situation in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine inhabited by the communities of indigenous peoples and national minorities.

The Hungarian minority in Ukraine living mainly in the region of Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia Oblast) has not yet been directly exposed to the horrors of the war. However, roughly since 2014, it has been targeted by online propaganda and disinformation serving the interests of the Kremlin in both Russian and Hungarian media. Several studies have demonstrated how the right-wing media supporting the Hungarian government have come increasingly under Russian influence either directly by translating pieces from Russian media outlets, or indirectly by channeling the talking points of the Kremlin. This digital propaganda has merged with the offline diffusion of ideologies supporting the illiberal democracy that Viktor Orbán declared official policy in Hungary in his infamous speech from 2014. This blog post explores the intricate web of nationalisms that influence  political opinions among the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.

As the war against Ukraine erupted on 24 February 2022, national minorities found themselves among its first victims, both as individuals and communities characterized by unique knowledge, language, and culture. This piece looks into the immediate effects of the war on ethnic Greeks and Bulgarians, and potential lessons learned for the state of Ukraine and its minorities from these tragic events. Whereas ethnic Greeks strive for physical survival in a besieged city of Mariupol and its surroundings, ethnic Bulgarians have mobilized in support of refugees. Those situations highlight the role of minority community leaders in voicing support for the Ukrainian authorities and as facilitators of aid from kin-states, as well as turn minority civil society organizations (CSOs) into agents of change of nation-wide significance.

As the Roma National Self-Government in Hungary failed to draw up its electoral list for the 2022 elections, it seemed that nobody would represent the most populous minority in Parliament; at least not within the framework of the preferential mandate system. This blog post covers the circumstances and developments behind this paradoxical situation and explains how uncompromising political wings have caused this outcome. The incumbent Roma minority advocate in Parliament and his allies worked hard to prevent anyone else from obtaining the first position on the electoral list and thus becoming a member of parliament, while the other political wing within the Roma self-government ruled out the re-election of the sitting advocate. As the author points out, however, the main problem lies in the very nature of the system, namely in the lack of real internal competition. Interestingly, as recent developments show, other Roma politicians may get elected on the party lists of both sides of the political spectrum.

On 4 February 2022, the Polish Journal of Laws published a new ordinance of the Minister of Education and Science, implementing cuts in the funding of education of German as a minority language. Consequently, the hourly length of such lessons will be significantly reduced. This regulation applies exclusively to the German minority, and the official motive for introducing discriminatory measures is to improve the situation of Polish diaspora in Germany. This is the first time after 1989 when the Polish state authorities introduce a law limiting the rights of Poland’s citizens belonging to a national minority (in this situation children), as a retaliation for the alleged situation of a kin-community elsewhere. Importantly, the adopted regulations are not only discriminatory towards one of the minorities; their implementation may in fact contribute to the dysfunctionality of the entire minority education system in Poland. This is also an obvious violation of the constitutional principle of equality before the law, the right of minorities to ‘maintain and develop their own language’, international standards of minority rights protection, as well as a threat to the very functioning of human rights protection mechanisms in the country.

The Conference on the Future of Europe, which was finally launched on 9 May 2021, has opened “a new space for debate with citizens to address Europe’s challenges and priorities”. The initiative uses three channels for citizens’ participation: the Multilingual digital platform, European Citizens’ Panels, and Conference Plenary. Content-wise it is grounded on the indicative list of nine topics covering wide range of areas from climate change to sports. This blog post draws attention to the importance of involving national minorities in the process, both regarding participation and issues covered. The Conference should strive to reach out to various population groups, including the ones in minority or marginalized position. Moreover, the Conference could serve as a good opportunity to reconsider the EU’s position with regard to the protection of national minorities: in a complex and increasingly diverse Europe, the EU has to take responsibility and search for innovative models of diversity management, including the protection of national minorities. Provided that it leads to some tangible action, the Conference might be a valuable step forward.