Examination of the European Union and minority rights: Bulgaria case

Bulgaria became a settlement with a majority of Turks and Muslims after the conquest of Didimoticho in 1361 and Plovdiv in 1390s as result of the start of Turkish migration from Anatolia to Rumelia in the 1400's. Thereafter, the process which started with the 1876 April Uprising and continued until 1908, ended with the independence of Bulgaria. The Muslims who were the majority until the beginning of this process, tried to maintain their lives as a minority; however, they faced oppression, violence and assimilation. It was observed that Bulgaria exerted effort on the benefits and identity of the alienation of Turks living inside the country in the narrow, and the Ottoman Empire in the broad sense during the state and nation building after the independence. Moreover, it was seen that Bulgaria did not fulfil the obligations that arose from the Pacta Sunt Servanda Law in the international treaties which Bulgaria signed and is responsible for. The minorities, who occasionally suffered from discrimination and violence under the previous governments, experienced by far more violence through name change, inhibition of religious rituals (circumcision, prayer, fasting, etc), forced migration and political oppression due to the communist regime. After the end of the Zhivkov regime in 1989, Bulgaria started to give more importance to individuals' rights and freedom. In fact, Bulgaria was accepted by the European Union (EU), a supranational community, in 2007; however, it failed to exercise the rights of the minority despite the increase of responsibility in this sense. Furthermore, it could not assert a clear statement of the definition of minority rights in its domestic law. The shortages and issues resulting from these events were explored in the survey of Bulgaria and explained through the Constructivism theory. The present particularly drew on the fieldwork conducted in Haskovo, Kardzhali, Momchilgrad, Plovdiv and Sofia.