Minority Rights Protection and Policy-Making in Romania prior to the EU Accession

Double Demands, Different Pressures: EC Monitoring Reports vs. RMDSz/UDMR Programs

Absztrakt

The present paper is an attempt to examine, in a comparative fashion, the series of demands and claims the Romanian state, as a candidate-state, had to deal with in the sphere of minority rights observance, protection and promotion, in the period prior to the EU accession (1998-2006). The study is based on extensive document analysis of two sets of documentation: (1) the European Commission’s annual regular reports on Romania’s progress towards accession in the period 1998-2006, and (2) the documentation (i.e. statute, programs, governmental agreements, internal resolutions, etc.), adopted by the main, most active, political organization representing the interests and demands of the Hungarian minority, the RMDSz/UDMR. The paper employs the observations previously drawn by Edina Szöcsik and Peter Vermeersch, on the development recorded by the states of East-Central Europe in the field of minority rights, under the auspices of the European Commission in the pre-accession period. From the documents’ analysis, the study concludes that a significant discrepancy between the claims and demands expressed by the RMDSz/UDMR for its constituency, and the recommendations issued by the European Commission through the monitoring reports, is conspicuous and can only be further explained through the circumstances and political changes specific to each of the years under scrutiny. Generally, the Commission appears vague and ambiguous in this sphere, probably due to the lack of well-established and well-founded standards.