Pluralism, which has always been an important feature of Europe, is now becoming more salient in political life as nation-states are challenged by the related processes of globalization and social differentiation. Especially the campaigns by many national minorities for greater regional autonomy to establish distinct legal and political frameworks and calls for cultural recognition by ethnic and religious minorities have highlighted the limitations of the dominant model of the modern nation-state as an administratively centralised and politically and culturally homogeneous state. A particular important set of challenges emanates from the Roma due to their particular history of discrimination, as well as their present marginalized status in all European countries and their emerging political involvement.
The European Union (EU) has attempted to alter the Central and Eastern European countries politics related to minorities as minority issues have been given high rhetorical prominence by the EU during the enlargement process to Central and Eastern Europe. Deliberation of the Roma question at the EU level during the accession process has done much to identify both the problems facing the Roma, as well as those that arise when thinking about majority-minority relations. Focusing on the possibility of viewing the EU as a means to accommodate difference and plurality it becomes obvious that the EU represents an important political and institutional framework with implications for not only the nation-state, but also the standing of the Roma. The EU becomes with this a source of opportunity for all those dissatisfied with status quo. Given the structural constraints inherent in the notion of a culturally homogeneous territorial nation-state and its conception of citizenship, the focus of this thesis is to discuss whether the CEECs entry into the EU will compensate for the lack of state efforts towards the Roma.
The main characteristics and problems facing the Roma minority are presented in chapter 2 in order to clarify what kind of challenge the Roma pose, i.e. in what sense their claims are a problem for conceptions of citizenship and belonging based on national systems of democratic governance. Chapter 3 discusses and contrasts two distinct theoretical models of minority protection; the multicultural and the deliberative. Minority protection within both approaches is aimed at members of minority groups in response to their difference from the general population. The purpose of minority protection, understood in accordance with the multicultural approach, is to protect and promote that difference, i.e. the cultural identity of minorities. Contrarily, the purpose within the deliberative approach is to eliminate the difference that distinguishes marginalised minorities, difference here being understood as obstacles to the enjoyment of equal rights. Deliberative theory therefore only supports mechanisms of group representation intended as corrections to distorted communication, meaning that it does not support such measures simply for the sake of recognising cultural diversity. Chapter 4 tries to identify which of the two models is reflected within the constitutive normative structure of the EU; the existing acquis - formally constituted by the Treaties, secondary legislation and rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), but also embedded in informal norms and political practices. Chapter 5 then assesses the EU s minority policy within the framework of normative theory by discussing the characteristics of ethnicity, political participation, political autonomy, and concerns for social and political unity in the EU. The purpose of this assessment is to offer a contribution to the breaching of the gap between normative standards and principles on the one hand and empirical realities on the other, and it is suggested that the deliberative approach may solve some of the dilemmas created by both formal non-discrimination and recognition for the achievement of justice. Chapter 6 finally discusses what implications a minority policy based on cosmopolitan incorporation has for our understanding of the EU.