European Territorial Cooperation and Ethnicity: Interreg Projects as Instruments of Minority Integration

The increasing focus of European organizations, such as the Council of Europe (CoE) and the European Union (EU), on minority protection since the disintegration of Communist bloc countries has promoted a new political context and opportunity structure for minority-majority relations. As a forgotten issue throughout the Cold War, minority protection has taken part in the political agenda of Europe. This is due to the widespread mobilization of ethnic groups, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. Empowering minority groups by conferring their cultural and linguistic rights was/has been regarded a way to realize peace and stability in the ethnically fragmented countries. Since then, most of the international and European institutions have taken positive measures to improve the status of minorities. As a major supranational institution, the EU is one these externalbodies promoting domestic changes in this policy-legal issue area. It requires candidate countries to demonstrate ‘stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities’, and it stipulates in the Treaty of Lisbon that ‘respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities’ as one of the foundational value of the Union. That is why any European state has to respect these principles and be committed to promoting them to become a member of the Union. Hence, prospective members must reach certain benchmarks in their treatment of minorities before they accede to membership. This strategy provided the EU with an important instrument for having an impact on minority protection in the candidate countries. Turkey is one applicant countries in which the leverage of the EU on itsminority policies is considerable. Until recently, Turkey prevented the articulation of language and cultural rights for the Kurds. Non recognition of Kurdish identity rights was among the most important considerations in Turkey-EU relations. However, in the aftermath of the Helsinki European Council in 1999, Turkey has undertaken important steps with respect tominority rights in general, and the protection of minority rights within the context of the Kurdish question in particular. Turkey adopted several harmonization reforms, changing the official stance of Turkey on minorities. The main aim of this chapter is to explore the impact of the Europeanintegration process on the cultural and linguistic rights of the territorially concentrated ethnic Kurdish minority. Two research questions are addressed in this chapter. The first is to what extent changing opportunities and constraints imposed by the EU’s general human rights policies has changed the institutional structure of Turkey to permit the expression of Kurdish claims and demands. The second question is what the factors are that limit or facilitate the impact of the EU. The basic argument of this chapter is that European support for humanrights has encouraged improvements in the state’s treatment of the Kurds in Turkey. But, this is not sufficient to realize a fully-fledged minority protection system for the Kurds. Without a total transformation of the political structure that redefines majority-minority relations, it would not be possible to achieve such a level of protection in Turkey. On the other hand, the opportunity structure created by the European integration, and emerging domestic factors reestablishing the balance of power between the secular establishment and conservative-liberal front led by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP), keeps the process of domestic change open for the adoption of norms for the protection of minorities. This chapter employs ‘Europeanization’ as theoretical framework. Theconcept is used to describe various change processes. It is deployed to refer different phenomena and processes of change, such as ‘changes in external boundaries’, ‘developing institutions at the European level’, ‘central penetration of national systems of governance’, ‘exporting forms of political cooperation’, and ‘the political unification project’ (Olsen 2002). In a general sense, Europeanization is defined as a ‘process by which domestic policy areas become increasingly subject to European policy making’ (Borzel 1999: 571). What makes Europeanization a significant theoretical framework for understanding change is that it provides analytical tools to simultaneously understand international and domestic factors and their interactions. Methodologically, a comparative case study is employed. The impact ofthe EU on the situation of the Kurds between 1999-2005 and 2005-8 is compared. The first period begins with the EU’s granting to Turkey of candidate status, and the second period commences with the inauguration of accession negotiations. These periods were chosen because the impetus for reform in them shows different variations. This chapter consists of three parts. The first part discusses whether it is possible to deal with the Kurdish question on the basis of minority rights protection. The second part analyzes the EU’s impact on legislative changes relating to the Kurdish issues, and the evolution of the approach of EU institutions towards the Kurdish issue. Lastly, the conditions determining the EU’s impact on the Kurdish issue in two different time periods are compared.

Under what conditions does the European Union (EU) promote good governance? Focusing on the EU members in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), I present the first systematic analysis in the literature based on longitudinal data suggesting state performance varies across two indicators of governance: While there has been a general trend of backsliding in corruption control since EU accession, various time series analyses reveal no such tendency regarding ethnic minority rights. I argue that the EU has the ability to offer electoral incentives/opportunities to opposition parties in national legislatures to adopt pro-EU policy preferences, which pressures government parties to implement reforms demanded by the EU. Several statistical models suggest that such political leverage the EU has over national governments is a stronger explanation for the cross-issue variation than any other alternative in the literature including the popular ‘membership conditionality’ argument. More specifically, prior to membership, the EU offers electoral incentives to opposition parties in CEE and mobilizes them to pressure governments to fight corruption. Yet, following accession, parties move away from EU-induced policies. Regarding minority protection, pro-minority opposition parties empowered by the EU during candidacy continue to favor pro-minority policies after accession and push governments accordingly.

This article honours Herman Nys' foundational contributions to European Union (EU) health law and, based on his oeuvre, strives to answer the question of who serves as the field's 'editor-in-chief': the EU or its Member States. It first clarifies the concept and boundaries of EU health law within a normative space also linked to national law, while excluding Council of Europe standards and other international instruments. It then analyses cross-border healthcare as a paradigmatic site in which the Court of Justice of the EU has shaped the balance between limited EU treaty competences and Member States' autonomy, notwithstanding modest levels of patient mobility. Finally, the article situates these legal dynamics within the EU's ethical framework, focusing on EU values and the role of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, where Herman served as First Vice-Chair. It concludes that 'editor-in-chief' authority has increasingly shifted from the Member States to the EU, while individuals continue to play an important role.

The purpose of this study is to explore how university instructors and students in five European countries (The Netherlands, Türkiye, Greece, Czechia, and Italy) perceive the incorporation of European Union (EU) values into higher education. To achieve this, a phenomenological research design was employed, utilizing semi-structured group interviews with 42 participants, comprising 20 instructors and 22 undergraduate students from various disciplines. While the findings revealed a shared understanding of fundamental EU values including democracy, human rights, equality, freedom, human dignity, and rule of law, they also demonstrated considerable challenges regarding their effective integration into educational practices. The main barriers identified include insufficient educational materials and training opportunities, a lack of coordination in exchange programs, a lack of time, and financial limitations. This study highlights that more structured and systematic strategies are needed to successfully integrate these values in university curricula. The implications of this research underscore the need for universities to enhance their support mechanisms, foster inclusivity, and develop innovative pedagogical approaches to overcoming these challenges and fully integrating EU values into higher education.

Migrants and ethnic minorities make up 9% of the total European Union (EU) population. These are heterogeneous groups. Merging Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshi together as South Asians clearly fails to reflect the complexities of their differing cultures, faiths and behaviours. A recent systematic review identified only 17 papers which examined and compared self-perceived health amongst ethnic minority groups in the EU. 1 The identified papers were sourced from five EU countries with Sweden providing most of these. There appears to be limited interest in and knowledge of the ethnicity inequality agenda in the EU, despite equity in health being one of its underlying values. Bhopal’s commentary 2 raises the priority of this issue and explores its implications for public health. Reducing ethnic inequalities and inequities in health should be a higher priority in public health research, policy and practice. A rationale for the importance of including migrant and ethnic minority populations in European health research is presented, the current status of this research is proposed, principles for addressing gaps in the evidence are suggested and some key messages for developing inequalities research in Europe are nominated. The assumption that minorities will always be unequal compared with the settled white population because of biological difference is challenged, it being noted that the often great disparities in health status and behaviour may sometimes favour minorities. There is often a legal requirement to develop effective interventions which meet the health care needs of minority communities. This requires data to initially establish the extent of health inequalities, identify priorities and implement interventions. Data remains inadequate often providing a local rather than national perspective. The exemplar status of the 1999 and 2004 Health Surveys for England 3,4 is

The ethnic landscape in the Baltic States is dominated by one large ethnic minority: Russians. Lithuania is an exception as here the first biggest ethnic minority are Poles, followed by Russians. The Baltic States have also significant Slavic minorities, such as Belarusians and Ukrainians. There are many barriers for people from different ethnic groups to overcome because the Baltic societies are segregated according to ethnicity across a number of dimensions: language, work and geography. During the Soviet period there were separate language schools, a system that reinforced ethnic separation. Labor market was also split along ethnic lines and a large proportion of ethnic minorities lived spatially segregated from the majority group and was concentrated mostly in urban centers. The impact of communist heritage and the construction of the post-communist state order had a negative impact on the integration process of the Russian minorities in those countries. The ethnic Russians had been heavily marginalized as many of them had no citizenship at all. As a result, they had limited access to labor-market and less social protection. However, the accession of the Baltic States to the European Union (EU) has succeeded in significantly changing policies with respect for and protection of minorities in the three Baltic countries. In the last years the ethnic Russians have in fact been partially accommodated through the consistency of the citizenship laws with the European Union norms, which precisely require the protection of minorities and respect for them. The aim of the study described herein is to investigate the historic roots of ethnic segregation between the native Baltic population and the Russian minority and show how the entry of the Baltic States into the EU has facilitated the process of promoting minority rights, especially from the perspective of granting citizenship right to Russian (and Polish) ethnic persons living in those countries.

1. IntroductionThe European Union (EU) seeks to strengthen the integration capacity of new members, current and potential candidates as well as its Eastern neighbors by helping them to make their domestic institutions and policies conform to the EU's norms and values and by building their capacity to provide collective goods and services. Modes of economic integration aim at mitigating competitive asymmetries and fostering the sustainability of EU market rules. Modes of political integration, in turn, aim to promote democratization and democratic consolidation, and to strengthen governance capacities of new and non-members.EU membership has been considered the key factor in strengthening the integration capacity of post-communist countries in the context of Eastern enlargement. Accordingly, the ineffectiveness of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in bringing about the domestic change that conforms to the EU's expectations tends to be blamed on the lack of this golden carrot. Likewise, the stalling of domestic reforms in current and potential candidates (Albania, Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Macedonia) as well as the potential back-sliding of some of the new member states (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, cf. Borzel 2014) are explained by the carrot already being eaten up or not being juicy enough (any more). At the same time, however, we do find that Eastern Neighbourhood Countries (ENC) engage in domestic reforms the EU has been promoting, mostly at the policy level (Langbein/ Borzel 2013) but in some cases also with regard to political institutions (Borzel/van Hullen 2014b).This paper reviews the literature regarding the modes of political integration the EU has developed and applied to shape state-building, democracy and rule of law in the new member states, in the current and potential candidates of the Western Balkans, and in the ENC. The first part develops an analytical framework of modes of political integration that combines two concepts: the mechanisms the EU uses to induce political change and the actors targeted by the EU with these mechanisms in its attempt to shape their preferences and build their reform capacities. Particular attention is paid to more indirect mechanisms, such as competition and emulation, which the Europeanization literature with its focus on conditionality and assistance has overlooked so far. The second part uses this framework to make an inventory of the EU's modes of political integration systematically tracing their evolution over time. The analysis draws on a comprehensive review of the general literature complemented by the findings of four separate case studies on the EU's attempts at promoting and protecting rule of law as well as strengthening the governance capacities in past candidates and new members (Dimitrova 2015), current and potential candidates (Fagan 2015; Mufteler- Bac 2015 a), and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Borzel/Lebanidze 2015). I show that the EU's political modes of integration developed through an incremental process of learning by doing rather than through a great master plan by the EU to strengthen the integration capacities of new and non-members. These political modes initially emerged in the development cooperation of the EU with the so-called African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (ACP), then travelled to the Eastern enlargement process and to the ENP and finally also spilled over into the domestic politics of the EU vis-a-vis its new member states.This might suggest that the EU has pursued a one size fits all approach. The analysis indeed reveals some interesting similarities of the modes used by the EU to promote the integration of new member states, candidates, and neighborhood countries. These similarities have been propelled by the lessons the EU has learned over time. While conditionality continues to play a prominent role, it has become more differentiated, both with regard to the rewards offered and the benchmark set to obtain them. …

Since 2009, the European Union (EU) has started to 'experiment' with new forms of territorial governance: Macro-regional strategies (MRS), such as the one for Baltic Sea Region, seek to mobilize a variety of actors and have resulted in a complex and dynamic governance architecture which can be conceived as a new 'regional institution' disposing of some form of authority and autonomy. We show that EU MRS are best conceived as test-bed for intergovernmentalizing cohesion policy - as well as its European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) objective - in a functional region, locking in previously established formats of regional cooperation and thereby going beyond cohesion policy and ETC. Thus, this paper identifies EU MRS as instances of experimentalist governance albeit still falling short on monitoring and evaluation of implementation. This weakness may ultimately jeopardize the macro-regional experiment altogether and, consequently, the development and consolidation of 'regional institutions' of the EU.

Values are a fairly common concept that is used extensively at the everyday level and is the subject of study in many sciences, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, religious studies, economic theory, political science, etc. Following the substantiation of values as a separate philosophical category, a branch of philosophy that deals with the study of values – axiology – was formed. Values began to move into the field of law and were used mainly as categories of philosophy of law or axiology of law and only partially became the subject of study of constitutional law and legal theory, as their nature as legal categories remained questionable for a long time. The enshrining of the values on which the European Union (EU) is based in Article 2 of the TEU, together with the introduction of a special liability mechanism for the breach of values in Article 7 of the TEU, as well as the validation by the Court of Justice of the EU of the mechanism outlined in Articles 258–260 of TFEU in case of breach of EU values, has put on the agenda the issue of a paradigm shift in the legal nature of values. Have EU values become a part of law or a legal category? Have they become part of the EU legal order? The confirmation of the legal nature of values and their properties as a separate legal category of the EU’s legal system would have far-reaching consequences in the future shaping of the interpretation, application, and development of EU law, national legal systems of Member States and of third counties that cooperate with the EU. The absence of such a transformation and property of values would significantly reduce the potential for influence and significance of the core values of the EU. The article defines which values are the core values of the EU. The author draws a conceptual distinction from related legal concepts and categories, primarily principles and norms. The author formulates law’s main characteristics or attributes from the perspective of both Legal positivism and natural law doctrine, namely: normativity, binding nature, formal certainty, systematicity and coerciveness or liability, compliance with the ideals of freedom, justice, and fundamental human rights. It also analyzes the compliance of values with these attributes or key characteristics. The analysis confirms that the core EU values enshrined in Article 2 of the TEU meet these criteria, and the author concludes that values are a new category of law that has emerged within the EU legal order. The author uses mainly doctrinal legal and inter-disciplinary legal research methods to characterize the basic concepts of law and the concept of values, as well as to identify and formulate their main attributes. The comparative method is used to compare values with related legal categories, in particular principles and norms, to determine their common and distinctive features. Deduction techniques were used to identify the main characteristics of law from the perspective of Legal positivism and natural law doctrine and assess the compliance of the EU’s core values with these features.

The negative referendum votes on the European Union (EU) constitutional treaty in the summer of 2005 provoked an atmosphere of uncertainty about the future of European institutions and about the legitimacy of European integration as a political project. However, observers of other aspects of EU politics have been far more sanguine. The recent enlargement of the EU has led many to hail Europe’s ability to reshape the domestic political and economic structures of candidate countries for EU membership. In particular, analysts have noted the EU’s success in influencing candidate states’ policies on preserving or implementing minority rights and eliminating discriminatory measures against ethnic minorities.’ This success, along with the idea of a Europe in which state boundaries are less relevant for determining the political and economic futures of citizens, has contributed to widespread optimism that nationalist conflict is slowly but assuredly exiting the European stage: in a “borderless Europe,” fighting to create new borders makes little sense. Even observers of current and potential EU candidate countries such as the Western Balkan states, where ethnic conflict continues to flare into violence and where Kosovo Albanian demands for independence remain a challenge to stability, have voiced the belief that nationalist conflict will dissipate under the influence of the EU and European integration.2KeywordsEuropean UnionEuropean IntegrationEuropean Union Member StateState SovereigntyEuropean PoliticsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In terms of law, a (ethnic or national) minority is usually defined as a group of state nationals in a (numerically) non-dominant position with ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics and the intention to preserve these. In order to achieve this goal, minority rights on the one hand should protect minorities against any kind of discrimination and on the other hand support them in order to achieve effective equal treatment. Following law's hierarchical structure, minority rights can be found at different levels: International law – as for example the two UN-covenants or several specific treaties on minority protection in other international or regional organizations – serves as an important source for minority rights. Minority rights are usually listed among (individual) human rights, mostly ignoring their specific character also including group rights. The EU has no competence for dealing with minority issues, so this is generally no part of Community law, although the EU considers minority rights as an important part of its foreign policy. At the national level, most minority rights have – at least in the case of Austria – constitutional status. They include the special prohibition of discrimination, the right to use minority languages in legal proceedings as well as special bilingual topographic signs and bilingual education at school, with more detailed provisions in administrative law. In most European countries, minorities have, moreover, special privileges in the democratic process, including minority representatives or special voting procedures. Also civil law is indirectly determined by minority rights, insofar as, for example, discriminating clauses in contracts can be contested before civil courts and the Austrian penal code punishes aggressive campaigning against ethnic minorities as well as genocide. Although law cannot prevent all sorts of prejudices and social or economic discrimination of minorities, it is nevertheless very important to protect these groups against discrimination by the state as well as by private persons and to preserve their characteristics.

The agriculture and food production sectors are of great importance for the economy of every country, especially for the member states of the European Union (EU). The European Union started implementing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1962. In order to solve the problems and adapt the agricultural policy to the needs of each member country, in the course of years, there have been numerous Common Agricultural Policy reforms. The new EU's agricultural policy emphasizes the multi functionality of agriculture and integrates the environmental component in the form of the environmental management that encourages the sustainable "green agriculture" and the implementation of environmental measures. On the other hand, the process of integration to the EU require from potential member states to pursue the necessary political, institutional, legal, administrative, social and economic reforms required to comply with EU values, progressively aligning with EU rules, standards, policies and practices. For the Republic of Serbia, this issue is extremely important as it should gradually harmonize its agricultural and rural policy with the CAP, in the viewpoint of a potential EU member state. IPARD, pre-accession EU assistance for rural development, focuses specifically on rural areas and agro food sectors of countries in the process of joining the European Union (EU). The new IPARD III programmes for the 2021-27 period further promotes a gradual alignment with the rules of the EU’s common agricultural policy. However, the adoption and implementation of the Republic of Serbia acquis with the EU in the field of agricultural and rural policy will require significant financial and technical investments in the future.

This article considers the relationship between ethnic and racial minority rights and citizenship in Asia. The most ethnically divided and populous region in the world, Asia is home to some of the most contrasting state responses to ethnic minority assertions of diversity and difference. Asia is also awash with wide-ranging claims by geographically-dispersed ethnic minorities to full and equal citizenship. In exploring the relationship between ethnic minority rights claims and citizenship in Asia, this article considers the relevance of certain core assumptions in Western-dominated citizenship theory to Asian experiences. The aim is to look beyond absolutist West–East and civic–ethnic bifurcations to consider more constructive questions about what Asian and Western models might learn from one another in approaching minority citizenship issues.

Th is article examines the reasons why European institutions and in particular the European Commission support a range of public interest groups that exert advocacy on behalf of minority rights. It argues that supported groups are notably those that provide political legitimacy to the European project, those that provide an alternative channel of representation for politically weak minority groups thereby off ering them a needed and alternative channel of representation, and those that contribute to a mythology of the European Union by emphasising the concept of human rights and thus providing the European Union (EU) with a distinctive and needed political identity. Among the groups that fulfi l these criteria are those who lobby on behalf of migrants and ethnic minorities. Th e article points out the role of these groups in combating racism and xenophobia and argues that this role has become more important following the fi nancial crisis of 2008 and a related mounting rivalry within EU Member States for resources of the welfare state.

Perceived discrimination when using health-care services, health outcomes, and health-care utilisation among Romani people in Europe: evidence from the Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey