Mniejszości narodowe a bezpieczeństwo Polski
National Minorities and Poland’s Security?

Summary/Abstract: Numerous attempts to define national and ethnic minorities have been made. The provisions of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages have tried to regulate this issue. The rights of national minorities in Poland are protected by Article 35 of the Constitution and the Law on national and ethnic minorities and regional languages. However, this fails to define the notion of a minority and encompasses only certain national minorities living in Poland. Its legal scope is limited by the requirement that the ancestors of minorities have lived on the territory of Poland for at least one hundred years. The legislator recognizes only nine national minorities and four ethnic minorities, and fails to stipulate the conditions for differentiating national minorities from ethnic minorities. The provisions of the law cannot be invoked by the representatives of Vietnamese, French, American, Greek, Italian and other minorities since they are not explicitly referred to by the legislator.

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