Sytuacja mniejszości narodowych i etnicznych w państwach Europy Środkowej w latach 1989–2004 z punktu widzenia społeczności międzynarodowej
The situation of national and ethnic minorities in the Central Europe states in the years 1989-2004 from the international community point of view

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this text was to compare policy of Central European towards national and ethnic minorities over the period of fifteen years (1989–2004). Besides Poland, Czechoslovakia (since 1993 Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Hungary are countries of quite different ethnic and national structure. Poland is a unique country due to its’ almost mono-ethnic population when comparing to Czech, Slovakia and Hungary, countries with a large Romani and in case of Slovakia also Hungarian minority. The period of communism 1945–1989 in all fields of political, social and economic life was under the dictate of Soviet Union. This applied to minorities issues as well. The changes which started in 1989 was a freely chosen way of political elites and societies of Czech, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Although the membership criteria of the EU (so-called Copenhagen Criteria) consisted inter alia of a criterion in favour of respecting the rights of national, ethnic and language minorities. It was a kind of “double standards” by the EU. The text analyses the impact of EU and other international actors on policies of Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Warsaw in the field of national minorities rights during the accession preparations. It was significantly reduced after the full membership of Czech, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia after the 1st of May 2004.

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