The position of minorities in the European integration process

When the period of the 1990s is analysed, it is possible to speak of limited protection, such as anti-discrimination, in the regime of minority rights and protection, and a more active involvement of states than in the past in facilitating the development of minority cultures and languages and promoting a participatory role for minorities in social, political, cultural, religious, economic and public life. In the 1990s and later years, racially based tensions and conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe revealed the vital and strategic importance of the minority phenomenon and minority rights in Europe. Accordingly, the EU, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and many other institutions and organisations have been actively involved in addressing the problems of minorities and in promoting the regionalisation and adoption of minority rights in Europe and beyond. In the thesis study, it is aimed to find answers to questions such as which minority regime and minority management model the EU's minority regime and minority management can be evaluated within, which multiculturalism approach coincides with the assumptions of the multiculturalism approach, which minority policies of the EU member states are in parallel with the elements of which minority management model, which expressions related to minorities in the primary and secondary legislation of the EU are similar to which of the minority models and multiculturalism approaches. In this context, in the fictional structure of the thesis, firstly, the theoretical and conceptual framework about multiculturalism and minorities was constructed, and its manifestations and definitions in the international arena, in different social structures and in different state structures were conveyed. Then, the basic elements of the minority governance models, which were created in a bottom-up or part-to-whole research tendency, were comparatively conveyed and the minority policies of the member states were analysed and which minority governance model they correspond to was discussed. Finally, the evolution of the minority perceptions and standards of the EU and the member states in the historical process, the principles regarding minorities in the founding treaties of the EU and the work of its institutions, and the EU-minority relations are presented within the framework of minority governance models and multiculturalism approaches. The main claim of the thesis is that the EU's minority regime, standards and management coincide with the assumptions of the liberal and radical multiculturalism approach and that it contains elements of the compromise politics and co-operative minority management model. In this thesis, these claims have been tried to be proved.