Minorities

Respect for the rights of persons belonging to minorities is one of the values of the EU. This value is explicitly mentioned in article 2 of the treaty on European Union. However, every fourth person from a minority group said that they had been a victim of crime at least once in the last 12 months.

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

EU legislation and programs contribute to addressing certain difficulties, including discrimination, which are likely to affect persons belonging to minorities. Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of membership of a national minority.
The European Commission

The Commission
The Commission ensures that EU countries, when implementing EU law, respect the principle of non-discrimination provided in Article 21 of the charter. The Commission has no general power as regards minorities, in particular it has no power over issues relating to: the recognition of the status of minorities, their self-determination and autonomy or the regime governing the use of regional or minority languages.
The European Commission

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is one of the EU’s specialised agencies. These agencies are set up to provide expert advice to the institutions of the EU and the Member States on a range of issues. FRA helps to ensure that the fundamental rights of people living in the EU are protected.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has a Multi-Annual Framework that identifies nine general thematic areas for its research activities in the period 2007-2012.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Frameworks
The European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities is the most comprehensive multilateral treaty devoted to minority rights. Adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe, it sets forth a number of principles according to which States are to develop specific policies to protect the rights of minorities.

The European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights

Another example of EU legislation to fight racism and xenophobia is the Council Framework Decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law, which was adopted in 2008.
The Council of Europe

In the past two decades in particular, the European Union has become the important factor and in Europe, the minority protection system has been improved over the past decade, due to the increase in the number of the instruments and the mechanisms of their implementation. Along with the various schools of multiculturality and the experiences that various states had connected with this phenomenon, there are two European international institutions that had impact on the development of political and legal awareness: The Council of Europe and Organization for European Security and Cooperation.
Belgrade Ethnicity Research Center

Early history
The Council of Europe has started this process back in the 1950s with the adoption of the Convention for the protection of human rights and basic freedoms, and was continued by creating European the Charter on Regional or Minority Languages in1992, and three years after this the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, so far the only multilateral instrument of minority rights protection in Europe.
Belgrade Ethnicity Research Center

The Copenhagen Document
OSCE standards are mainly supplied in the Copenhagen document from June 1993, with the purpose of human rights guarantees and minority protection. The primary goal is to revalidate minority rights, to realize the importance of the group recognition in order to promote culture, and the importance of the autonomy for resolving ethnic conflicts.
Belgrade Ethnicity Research Center

The Overall Issue
According to Stefan Wolff [University of Nottingham] there is no doubt that Europe is an ethnically diverse continent as a whole, and that there are few, if any countries in which there are no population groups with an ethnic identity distinct from that of the country's titular nation.
Stefan Wolff

The Romas
The Romas are an ethnicity with no clear home country. This leads them to migrate to various places in the EU, which often leads to unpleasant confrontation. Although the European Commission has a relatively new Roma integration strategy, the director of the European Roma Rights Centre Robert Kushen questions whether they will follow through with it and demand real action from member states to address Roma exclusion.
EUobserver

The Muslims
According to a recent report on respondents who identified themselves as Muslims (EU-MIDIS ‘Data in Focus' reports), 1 in 3 respondents (34% of men and 26% of women) stated that they had experienced discrimination in the past 12 months. Those Muslim respondents who had been discriminated against stated that they had experienced, on average, 8 incidents of discrimination over a 12-month period.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Challenges and Achievements
The EU and its Member States have over the years successfully built a robust fundamental rights infrastructure. However, in many areas, both the EU and Member States can, and must, still do better, says FRA Director Morten Kjaerum. Their latest annual report shows that the current crisis is also a test for fundamental rights, and has implications for democratic legitimacy and the rule of law.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
According to this article, any discrimination based on grounds such as ‘sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation’ shall be prohibited.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Framework Convention for the Protection of National minorities
The framework consists of 32 articles made in 1995 in Strasbourg. The frameworks main objective is to set a standard for minority protection within the union. "Being resolved to protect within their respective territories the existence of national minorities; considering that the upheavals of European history have shown that the protection of national minorities is essential to stability, democratic security and peace.
The Council of Europe

Article 19 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
Gives the Union the competence to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Racial and Employment Equality Directive
Establishes a framework against discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin inside and outside the labour market. Establishes a framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, and in Article 1 lays down a general framework for combating discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation as regards employment and occupation.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Critique:
The New Minorities
Millions of ex-colonials, guest workers, refugees, and other immigrants have settled in Western Europe during recent decades. Extensive research on this phenomenon broadens sociology's understanding of intergroup relations in industrial societies. Unlike African Americans, these new Europeans are often viewed as not belonging by people in the European countries, and gaining citizenship can therefore be difficult.
Annual Review of Sociology

Unheard minorities
The EU has few subjects that nobody in Brussels likes to talk about, among which we find minority problems. Corsica and the Bask country may serve as examples for many others that are less visible or audible. Nation states often prevent areal minority groups’ political sovereignty and independence.
NewropMag

Prospects:
The Impact of the EU Law
According to the book “The impact of the EU Law on Minority Rights” by Tawhida Ahmed does binding standards in EU Law really only exist in the sphere of non-discrimination and are at their strongest in the field of employment. As such, binding standards within EU law affect only a small proportion of the canon of minority rights. However, the EU does have competence to promote diversity and facilitate redistribution of power and resources across the EU.
Hart Publishing

The Educational Solution
EUobserver points out that a massive investment in education is the only way that the huge Roma minority in Romania can emerge from grinding poverty and marginalisation. If better educated, the Roma people could fill the gap created by the country's falling population and provide future generations of entrepreneurs, scientists and skilled workers.
EUobserver

The Prospects of Enlargement
The EU will find it hard to maintain its agnostic stance on minority rights vis-a-vis its members. Sooner or later two factors - growing migration and diversity within the EU, and enlargement to the East - will render inevitable the elaboration of a more concrete Union framework on minority rights.
Open Society Institute