A Peculiar Case of Monitoring. Minority Rights in Romania as Seen Through the Lens of the ACFC and the COMEX
A Peculiar Case of Monitoring. Minority Rights in Romania as Seen Through the Lens of the ACFC and the COMEX

Summary/Abstract: Romania submitted its state report to the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML ) roughly at the same time, however, the evaluation reports of the two bodies took rather different turns. The paper analyzes these two documents comparatively, and contrasts them to the earlier evaluation reports as well. The comparison highlights several textual differences and sheds light on the attitude of the two evaluation committees. The argument of the paper can be summarized in three points: 1) the two reports interpret differently many aspects of minority rights in Romania, and seemingly only in the case of the FCNM did the input of minority NGOs make a difference; 2) the usability of the two reports depends on the context in which one wants to use them: the FCNM report has more of an agenda setting effect, while the ECRML focuses on legally more accurate recommendations; 3) the technical and standardized approach of the Committee of Experts of the ECRML is not always suitable to describe the holistic situation of minority languages in a country.

• Details
• Contents