Ethnic minority protection and anti-discrimination in Central Europe: before and after EU accession: the case of Poland

Abstract

'This article explores key policy developments regarding ethnic minority protection and anti-discrimination in contemporary Poland. More specifically, it examines the relationship between domestic policy formation and the European context. Before 2004, the European Union applied membership conditionality in order to attempt to stimulate candidate member states in post-communist Central Europe to adopt special minority protection measures. As a result, most of these countries turned to the official recognition of the ethnic specificity of minority groups and the acceptance of group-related cultural entitlements, not only as norms in their own right but also as the basis for a policy of stimulating ethnocultural diversity. Since the EU enlargement of 2004, however, European attempts to stimulate ethnocultural diversity in the new member states have been less focused on group-related rights but have emphasized the themes of social inclusion, anti-discrimination and equal opportunities. The author explores how, in this new European context, Polish policies on ethnic minority protection have developed. Through a comparison of dominant Polish perceptions of minority protection issues with dominant discourses about the preservation of ethnic diversity promoted by EU institutions, this article shows the linkages between recent developments in Polish minority policy-making and the current European initiatives in this field. It also shows important points of disjuncture between the way in which European institutions have framed issues of ethnocultural diversity and the way in which Polish policy-makers have worked out minority protection.' (author's abstract)