Report on the seminar : Enlargement of the EU: a Challenge for What?

Programm

September 29th

Introductory Session

Nora Kovacs as the Scientific Secretary inaugurated conference proceedings, on behalf of László Szarka, the Director of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Institute of Ethnic and National Minorities (RIENM), by briefly introducing the main objectives and activities of the institute. Research within the institute generally focuses on ethnic minorities and the Roma population in Hungary and the surrounding region and has taken particular interest over the past several years in migration and asylum related issues. There are four research groups within the institute, one that examines national minorities in Hungary, one that focuses on Roma minorities in Hungary as well as Central and Eastern Europe, one that studies immigrant communities in Hungary and another that studies Hungarian migrant communities living in neighbouring countries

After another brief welcome and introduction, Judit Tóth, Research Leader at the Institute, outlined some research perspectives that merit further exploration in the field of EU enlargement research, and she identified some of the obstacles that must be overcome in order to effectively realise such exploration. She first described five different challenges or «traps» that may be encountered in pursuing research on the limitation of liberties for the sake of communitarian interest and security within the specific context of EU enlargement. The first three traps described are methodological. First, because the aspect of this research that applies to enlargement does not have an easily established distinct definition but is rather a crossroads of mechanisms, functions and policy, the task of defining and prioritising areas of study based on new Member States and other stakeholders’ interests is both essential and problematic. Hence, the second and related challenge: how to launch and define a new field of research. The third trap also plays a role in problematising the first two: because the new Member State region and more generally the CEE countries are far from homogenous regions, effective research necessitates abandoning the representative nature of the work. The fourth trap mentioned by Ms. Tóth refers to the content of the research rather than the methodology: research that aims at the preservation of the rule of law is confronted with the paradoxical problem that the automatic and restrictive exceptional anti-terrorism policies of the EU represent a threat to democracy and rule of law that is perhaps just as significant as that posed by the terrorist phenomena that they are designed to prevent. The fifth and final trap that Ms. Tóth presented refers to the fact that, while diversity is a community value, it is one that is very problematic to support in the eastern part of the EU as addressing minority issues in these states also necessitates intricate discussion with regard to kin-minority and national identity.

In response to these five challenges, Ms. Tóth then presented three research tracks that have the potential to result in fruitful exploration. The first involves further exploring the regional impacts of enlargement through research that focuses on neighbourhood policy, cross-border cooperation, visa policy and person-to-person contact. Ms. Tóth’s second track suggests examining the potential consequences of anti-terrorist measures on the institutions of constitutional rule of law democracy. The third and final track proposes exploring the impacts of diversity supporting measures in favour of kin minority and ethnicity on identity, cohesion and public law in the new Member States.

András Kováts, a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnic and National Minorities, continued proceedings with a presentation of one of the primary means of diffusing and communicating the results of the research that is carried out by members of the Challenge project: the consortium’s website, www.libertysecurity.org. In particular, Mr. Kováts presented the contribution made to the site by RIENM, which, for the moment, is accessible at www.alleycat.mta.hu and will soon be accessible through the Challenge web page. A brief survey of the web site ensued outlying the organisation of the content under different categories that include defining the Challenge project, news and events, publications, bibliographies, a list of partners and contacts. The primary objective in creating this web page is to increase over time the submission and diffusion of research papers that are associated to the Challenge project.

Afternoon Session

After a lunch break the first themed session began under the title Regional Impacts and Their Measuring. This session, which was chaired by Mr. Gábor Bihary (Member of the Committee of the Regions), a trans-national and cross-border affairs specialist, began with Attila Melegh’s analysis of the political techniques of the European Union in its enlargement endeavours in comparison with its neighbourhood policy. Mr. Melegh, who is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Demographic Studies in Hungary, introduced Karl Mannheim’s concept of the utopia of liberal humanitarianismas a guiding element of his comparative analysis. Mannheim’s term describes a conception of the «correct» or the rational that is set against a necessarily evil reality. The utopia of liberal humanitarianism represents ideals, which can never be achieved but rather function as a measurement of «progress». In applying Mannheim’s concept to EU enlargement and neighbourhood policy, Melegh identifies the existence of a dominant hegemonic discourse that conceives of a European civilization that gradually declines as it moves toward the east and toward the south. Such a conception relates to Mannheim’s utopia of liberal humanitarianism in that it imposes a politically employable analytical measurement system that, based on the asymmetrical terms of civilization versus barberry, establishes a slope of European civilization, on which states are placed at the top, in the middle or at the bottom. According to Melegh, it is also as a result of the dominance of this perspective that enlargement was conditioned on Eastern states meeting imposed political and economic conditions that established standards for stability. Mr. Melegh then offered an analysis of the EU Neighbourhood Policy in relation to EU enlargement. While the Neighbourhood policy is subject to borders to which an enlarged EU will theoretically not apply, Mr. Melegh proposed conceiving the dividing lines of border policy in both contexts as floating borders that are imposed at different places and in different ways according to the interests of the EU in a given situation. Neighbourhood policy is subject to similar progress measurements that are based on imposed EU liberal humanitarian ideals. Similar to enlargement, ENP rules out neither membership nor future membership, which will probably create mimetic competition among potential ENP members. The mechanism of conditionality which measured progress based on the passing of tests in the enlargement procedures also applies to ENP membership. Finally the ENP faces the same challenges that enlargement does in running the risk of being perceived as an unwelcome intruder while counting on the appeal of free market principles and progress to help in overtaking such negative images.

Mr. Gábor Koncz (Research fellow), who was speaking on behalf of Béla Baranyi from the Debrecen Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Regional Studies, presented a methodological proposal on the applicability of border data to analyses of regional revitalisation. A case study was made using the example of the eastern border of Hungary in order to determine the measurability of cross-border regional relations in within the context of EU enlargement. Mr. Koncz offered some existing interpretations of the concept of border region and then outlined the features that are specific to that of the EU. Mr. Koncz then outlined some of the available Hungarian border data, which included describing border lengths, defining population sizes in specific regions and identifying some of the economic, political and cultural motivations for cross-border cooperation. He offered a historical dimension to the comprehension of the nature of Hungarian borders and border cooperation. The Trianon Treaty of July 4th, 1920 for example represented a significant loss of territory and population, a strengthening of the separating role of borders, an establishment of peripheries along the border and a disruption of the unifying political, economic and ethnic structure of the Carpathian Basin. Mr. Koncz also provided a glimpse of some of the advantages and disadvantages of EU accession with regard to regional border relations. Advantages included improvements in economic and social relation and integration along internal EU borders, improvement in financial resource opportunities for border regions, while some of the disadvantages that were mentioned included the introduction of the Schengen Border System, economic crises on both sides of borders due to the disadvantageous peripheral situation of border regions. Mr. Koncz described a few examples of cross-border cooperation institutions on both the micro and the macro level and then detailed some of the operational dilemmas of such institutions. The whole problematic was put into the perspective of the Schengen acquis which added new complications such as obligatory visas for citizens of neighbouring countries that did not previously need them, a decreased permeability of the border and Hungarian-Hungarian relations that became increasingly difficult to maintain. He then made a few methodological suggestions with regard to possible sources of border relation data which included an extensive scientific and legal bibliography, database recommendations with regard to economy and infrastructure, possible sources for statistics on labour market and migration as well as sources for the identification of the states role in the management of its borders. Mr. Koncz’s presentation concluded with a discussion of the measurability of long and short term effects of cross-border cooperation between Hungary and Romania and Hungary and the Ukraine. He also offered some conclusions based on results of research already undertaken which focused on the potential for project cooperation undertaken by small institutional forms through increased obtainment and increasingly effective use of EU resources to combat the negative effects of the Schengen border regime.

The focus of the conference was then narrowed from a broader perspective on regional border cooperation in Hungary to two case studies of specific regional border cooperation efforts. First, Franziska Schubert of Cornivus University presented her research on cooperation undertaken between the Hungarian city of Gyula and Arad in Romania. Gyula is located in the very poor county of Békés where a lack of industrialisation and its distance from the capital have kept economic development and investment low. Ms. Schubert undertook an analysis of the potential for cross-border regional cooperation, with the help of EU project funding possibilities, to harness some of the region’s assets, such as its tourist and cultural prominence within the county, and alleviate some of the economic suffering that the inhabitants of Gyula face. Current cooperation between Arad and Gyula is low on the individual level, most active on the cultural level and non-existent on the economic level and that of tourism, though cooperation in the latter domain is planned. While Ms. Schubert identified some significant obstacles to the development of future further economic cooperation that include limited capacities, a difficult economic situation, difficulties in adopting different ways of thinking, bureaucracy and competition, she also insisted on the potential that such ventures represent were some of the above obstacles to be addressed. Ms. Schubert highlighted in particular the potential for improvement that possible cooperative projects in the fields of tourism (health, natural, historical), business, agriculture (eco-farming) and renewable energies represent.

The findings of Csaba Smik, a freelance researcher, offered another opportunity to examine the effects of borders on a region and cross-border cooperation’s potential to alleviate some of the problems encountered in that region. In presenting his research on the effects of regional border relations on ethnic Hungarians living in South Slovakia, Mr. Smik discussed the negative effects that the border alterations resulting from the Trianon Treaty had on the ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia. Mr. Smik identified problems ranging from economic troubles to identity issues, assimilation pressure and difficulty in maintaining connection to the mother country that all had, in part, their roots in the Trianon border’s interruption of channels that had previously connected communities for over 900 years. He too, however, identified a certain degree of potential in cross border cooperation programs to address some of the difficulties that ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia encounter. Such cooperation projects have already been undertaken and include projects in the areas of border improvement, sewage, water cleaning, radio, tourism, administrative development and e-learning education programs, just to name a few. Mr. Smik mentioned that the success of these projects and other similar ones as contingent upon several conditions: that Hungarians on both sides of the border are involved as their bond forms a bridge across the border, that experts are trained in a cooperative manner and that borders are made increasingly transparent through the development of motorway and the creation of more border control stations.

A discussion amongst all participants and presenters followed Mr. Smik’s presentation, which was the last of the afternoon. The discussion was lively and covered many different areas of the presentation. The representative of the Ministry of the Interior objected to Mr. Smik’s prediction that as many as 46 new border crossing stations on the Hungarian-Slovakian border would be financed, noting that the majority of funding in such areas was being funnelled to Hungary’s external borders. Mr. Melegh was then questioned about the existence of rhetoric that countered dominant Euro-centric discourse and the potential for an uprising of nationalist sentiment in response to such discourse. Mr. Melegh noted the existence of such counter-rhetoric and made particular reference to Byelorussia and Serbia where counter-rhetoric is particularly strong and to Georgia as an example of one of many countries where pro-EU politicians are in particularly fragile positions. Mr. Melegh then fielded another question with regard to the role of socialisation as one of the conditions of stability that is imposed on states who are seeking Neighbourhood Policy membership. Mr. Melegh noted that the very idea of utopia is to socialise, and, thus, the countries are, in fact, disciplined in order to achieve stability in this respect. Socialisation discipline operates on three different levels: the Neighbourhood Instrument itself promotes these ideas; the imposing presence dominant Euro-centric discourse is perhaps the most powerful tool; and competition between different social groups co-existing within one state is heavily relied upon. Another participant noted the importance of mentality change in order to foster greater cross-border regional cooperation and, thus, highlighted the importance of further research in the mental mapping of populations in border regions. Ms. Schubert agreed with these remarks and elaborated upon her own experience with mental mapping in Gyula where, for example, project leaders do not use official channels of communication while the government authorities do. The result is that the project leaders achieve results in a quicker manner but the work on the foundations of the cooperative activity is less efficient, while the government authorities results are very slow due to their use of the official channels. In agreeing with the necessity for a change in mentality, Mr. Smik noted the importance of history in the collective minds of these populations, a history which creates the sensation that life is a competitive race, a sensation which is not easy to reconcile with cooperative effort. Ms. Schubert placed less emphasis on the importance of history or of the Trianon Treaty on the population she was researching but rather noted a high level of prejudice especially among the youth as representing a large obstacle. Mr. Melegh also downplayed the importance of history and the Trianon Treaty on the formation of the mental map and rather attributed this sense of competitiveness, to which Mr. Smik referred, to the racist ideas and discourse that the Euro-centric slope of civilisation inherently maintains.

September 30th

First Morning Session

The following day’s proceedings began with session entitled, Impacts of Visa Policy - Expectations and Reality. Mattila Heikki, the Regional Project Development Officer for the Region Office of IOM in Budapest, chaired the session. Mr. Heikki introduced his work at the IOM and spoke of the IOM’s delicate position as an organisation that plays both the role of an NGO and that of a state sponsored institution.

Mr. Endre Szabó of the Schengen Division of the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Budapest was the first to speak on the issue of visas. Mr. Szabo began his presentation by noting that while visas are typically seen as a restrictive foreign policy instrument, they are also means to control against the undesired effects of unwanted immigration. He went on to note that, in any case, as EU visa policy is part of Schengen, Hungary had no choice as to whether or not to implement the common EU visa policy. Mr. Szabo then went on to speak about the Visegrad Countires (V4) Cooperation. He noted that while the cooperation still exists, it is not too active in Justice and Home Affairs issues. The cooperation has, nonetheless, agreed to modernise consular services, work toward together toward harmonisation with EU standards and to exchange information. Despite a current lack of cooperative effort within V4 with regard to visa policy, in the opinion of Mr. Szabo, such cooperation is advisable especially in view of new Member States’ Schengen requirements because were one state to be unprepared for the acquis in October of 2007, this would hurt the chances of all the other states. Mr. Szabo then underlined issues currently on the table in Brussels that could potentially be subject to V4 cooperation, such as the development of the Schengen Information System II, regulating local border traffic, visa reciprocity, transit programs, visa facilitation between the EU and Russia and between the EU and the Ukraine and cooperation with regard to the issuing of visas.

Ms. Angelina Tchobadjiyska, an expert on Justice and Home Affairs issues from the European Institute in Sofia, then spoke about the consequences of aligning visa policy in the accession process in Bulgaria. As Ms. Tchobadjiyska was going through the recent historical context of the topic, she noted that Bulgaria had remained on the EU’s negative visa list until the fall of 2001 and that many legal measures had indeed to be undertaken in order for Bulgaria to have its name removed. She also noted that the visa alignment negotiation process between Bulgaria and the EU would more accurately be referred to as an acceptance process as no bilateral negotiation took place. Bulgaria adopted over 15 measures as part of the Schengen Acquis on Free Movement of Persons, among which included establishing a list of the third countries whose nationals must have visas, establishing common penal definitions and common definitions of illegal entry and attaining mutual recognition of expulsion decisions. It was anticipated in Bulgaria that the visa policy alignment measures would decrease the number of visitors, increase citizenship applications and have unexpected consequences on the Bulgarian legal system. In examining data, Ms. Tchobadjiyska demonstrated that visits from the Ukraine are cut in half following the application of the new rules and down in Russia as well though not by as much due to efficient visa procedures in the consulates in Russia. Visits have remained high from Serbia and Montenegro, where visas remain unnecessary. She also noted that citizenship applications were up but especially among those of Bulgarian origin who thus were exempted from length of residency requirements, language requirements and were not required to abandon their original citizenship. Article 76 (5 and 6), which allows for the confiscation of a person’s passport upon having resided illegally in another country, is certainly an example of a surprising legal consequence of the alignment procedures. Surprising, according to Ms. Tchobadjiyska, because the consequence is deprivation of liberty and especially because the punishment is for an offence that has taken place in another state and that has already been processed in that state.

Agnieszka Weinar, a PhD student and a Junior Researcher at Batory Foundation and Warsaw University, then presented her research which attempts to explain Poland’s experiences in adopting EU visa policy and securitisation measures. A new visa regime was introduced in Poland as of September 30th 2003 which allowed for 23 different types of visas. The main objective of the new regime was to maintain border movement at the same level while still complying with EU visa policy. Thus measures such as free visas for Ukrainians and the offering of many cases of exemption to citizens of Byelorussia. The result was that, despite an initial fall in movement just after the adoption of the new regime, the levels quickly rebounded and are now almost back to where they were before accession. Citizenship under the new regime has some similarity with the Bulgarian experiences that were mentioned in the previous presentation in that, while immigrants typically need to wait 10 years in order to apply, the process is much simpler for those who can prove Polish ethnic origin. As a result, like in Bulgaria, citizenship applications in Poland have primarily increased within the category of those claiming ethnic origin. In concluding, Ms. Weinar introduced the concept of securitisation as a policy around which there is no debate and a policy in which there is a divergence between expressed security concerns and actual practices which are aimed at maintaining border movement levels.

The final presentation under the visa theme was that of Luca Váradi, a student from Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest. Her research was also on the effects of new visa policy but this time in Hungary, and she was primarily interested in the consequences from the point of view of the applicant. When she was initially asking visa seekers why they thought such policy was necessary, the most frequent response was that it was an attempt on behalf of the authorities to select and take only the «good» people. To get a better sense of the selection process and the experiences of those who are subjected to it, she interviewed two groups of people, those who applied and succeeded in entering Hungary and those who applied but were rejected. The results of Ms. Váradi’s research demonstrated that visa applicants view the new policy as inconvenient and useless, although it is often seen as far smoother than other immigration procedures. While her research also revealed that those who are willing enter Hungary as tourists and who correctly fill out the application are generally allowed entry, no other reasoned patterns for the selection of the «good» visa applicants were detectable.

Discussion of this session’s presentations began with a question for Ms. Váradi from a participant who wished to know who the rejected visa applicants generally were. Her research indicated that often they were ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring states. Another participant posed the question that if indeed visas function as a screening method, do they screen based on criteria of selection or based on the procedural aspects of the process. Mr. Szabó remarked that more often than not visas were rejected based on technicalities rather than on an evaluation of the case itself, and he argued that the examination of visa applications should be further developed. Ms. Tchobadjiyska felt that in addition to the screening process being based on procedural technicalities, there is also much consular discretion with regard to the application of the criteria and thus the application of the rules depends on the personality of the officials who happen to receive a particular file. Ms. Weiner added that the screening mechanism is particularly dysfunctional, as the criminals never even file an application or enter the system and thus it is only the low risk group that engage in the procedural screening from the beginning. Another participant then asked Mr. Szabó first, why he considered immigration to be a threat, and second, if the Salzburg Group was not an example of Viségrad Cooperation that he might have overlooked. Mr. Szabó responded to the first question by distinguishing between controlled immigration that contributes to the well-being of a country and its economic development and uncontrolled immigration that comes from far away, is poverty driven and has no Hungarian or European connection. The threat, in his eyes, comes from the latter category. In response to the participant’s Viségrad question, Mr. Szabó noted that Austria is indeed helping Slovakia an Hungary prepare for the Schengen acquis under the framework of the Salzburg Group. A participant made the final comment that the failure of Consular Services to respond to Ms. Váradi’s inquiries was illegal, to which Mr. Szabó replied that those people who work for a consulate cannot reveal their working methodology.

Second Morning Session

Emmanuelle-Pierre Guittet chaired the second session of September 30th entitled Public Order and Security contra Newborn Rule of Law. Mr. Guittet offered the following question, which guided the discussion that was to follow: What is at stake when the discourse of the war on terror is dominant and, in particular, what are the effects on the rule of law?

Gábor Halmai, Director of Hungarian Human Rights and Documentation Centre, began the proceedings of the second morning session with a presentation of the debate of public order versus security in newborn rule of law countrieswith the particular view of identifying the specific characteristics of such countries and the specific contradictions between security and rule of law there within. More specifically, Mr. Halmai’s discussion centred on the question of whether or not there exists a specific standard for the limitation of human rights in transitional countries. He argued that the securing of negative liberties, police brutality in detention for example, is counter-productive in new countries and shouldn’t be as carefully implemented as in older countries. Mr. Halmai cited two decisions in which the European Human Rights Court, nonetheless, ruled in favour of allowing exceptions to the rule of law based on the fact that the country in question was in a state of transition. The first case granted such an exception to an association of police officers in Hungary because of the transitional nature of its democracy. The second example cited was a hate speech decision that granted larger freedoms for countries in transition. In contrast a German court held that, although the denial of the Holocaust represents a freedom of speech, this freedom could be restricted due to the specific historical character of the subject matter.

István Szikinger, a lecturer at Central European University, then discussed the legal status and entitlements of police, security services and border guards in the fight against terrorism in Hungary. Mr. Szikinger began by insisting that no real contradiction exists between security and human rights because the maximum enjoyment of human rights is in fact the full realisation of security. He argued, however, that boththe Police Act of 1994 and the Security Act of 1995go in the wrong direction. In going as far as requiring police officers to disobey the law if ordered to do so, these acts do more harm than crime and terrorism put together because they destroy the existence of a sense of justice in society. The extension of the time that the Hungarian police forces are allowed to detain a suspect from 8 to 12 hours offers another example of an unnecessary breach of the rule of law. Mr. Szikinger also alluded to a surveillance report on the Hungarian Muslim Community to illustrate the absurdity of existing security measures. This report concludes that the observed community is living with complete respect of the rules, which leads to the obvious question, what, then, is the purpose of the surveillance measures we have imposed on this community? Mr. Szikinger concluded his analysis of the misdirection of the current approach to security concerns with the suggestion that human rights security should remain the central aim of every counter-terrorism measure that is taken.

András Pap, a lecturer at the College of Koldolányi, continued the discussion of the extension of police rights in the war on terrorism with a presentation on the role that ethnic profiling plays in investigation procedures and in weakening the rule of law in a society. The war on terrorism has brought racial discrimination in police activity back under the spotlight, as countless individuals are stopped on highways, on the street or on the border because of their ethnic origin. Many times these procedures are justified as necessary to effectively prevent terrorist acts. According to Mr. Pap, the terrorist acts of September 11th induced a large-scale psychological change that has resulted in the questioning of old institutions; and the old logic that it is better to let nine guilty people go free than to jail one innocent person has been inversed so that now we prefer jailing nine innocent people to letting one guilty person go free. Pap then described the common uses of race data in criminal investigations that range from those that rely on more or less precise victim descriptions to racial profiling, which relies on a hypothetical connection between race and crime based on perceived likelihood’s, and finally he describes profiles that are set into law, thus obliging, for example, border guards to stop Pakistanis and bank officials to examine all transactions with banks in the Middle East. Pap insisted that, not only is ethnic profiling unacceptable morally because of its fundamentally discriminatory premises, it is also ineffective. He cited American studies which revealed that although the police stop more black people on the highway, the ratio of crimes committed to population size is no higher than it is with respect to other races. Thus, racial profiling leads to false negatives, or increased criminalisation of specific races, as well as false positives, where white middle class persons, for example, have less chance to be caught in acts of crime. Mr. Pap concluded his presentation by referring to the psychological nature of the war on terror. It is not the effectiveness, then, that is at issue. It is rather the fact that when we see border guards stopping people who have Arabic appearance, we feel a sense of security.

Gábor Sulyok, a Research Fellow at the Hungarian Academy of the Sciences Institute for Legal Research, pursued the discussion of the war on terrorism with an analysis of the legal possibilities of shooting down a rogue civil aircraft. According to his analysis, because of the sovereignty of state airspace, a state may in principle legally take action against an aircraft that violates that sovereignty but only under certain hardly feasible conditions. A state may for example invoke article 51 of the UN Convention which assures the right to self- defence provided that the situation is of extreme gravity and that the conduct is attributed to a state. Even if all of these conditions are fulfilled, however, International Humanitarian Law dictates that the plane can only be shot down if it is a military object and if there are only combatants and no crewmembers or passengers on board. If the terrorists are not combatants, then the destruction of the aircraft would fall under International Human Rights Law which again dictates that the aircraft can only be destroyed if there are only terrorists on board. Sulyok then discussed the problem with regard to Hungarian law. Section 132 of the Act on National Defence represents an attempt to make the destruction of a rogue aircraft possible, but section 132 necessitates either that Parliament or the President authorise the use of force or that a sate of emergency or martial law is in effect. Furthermore, if passengers or crewmembers are on board, then the legal destruction of the aircraft is impossible, state of emergency, martial law or Presidential authorisation aside.

Discussion of the presentations of this second morning session began with the question of when and how terrorists are qualified as combatants. Mr. Sulyok noted that terrorist is an undefined concept and that if certain requirements are met, if for example a person commits a terrorist act, a terrorist may be deemed a lawful combatant. The question was then raised from another participant of how the theoretical issues addressed in all four of the presentations affect the practicality of prevention. In response, Mr. Szikinger discussed the overlapping competencies of police and National Security agents which result in no distinction in activity between the two institutions with regard to terrorism. The result, according to Szikinger, is that National Security Services exists in a certain institutional void from which they occupy themselves by focusing on investigating Muslims and other minorities. Prevention with regard to rogue aircraft attack, according to Mr. Sulyok, must be solved on the ground with heightened airport security. Yet even this prevention effort is problematic as it is impossible to ensure the security of airports outside of a state’s territory. Mr. Halmai noted that the analysis of the possibility of destroying a rogue civil aircraft reveals the fact that three absolute rights (the right to life, to the presumption of innocence and to be protected from inhumane treatment) are at stake, and section 132 of the Hungarian Act on National Defence is thus contrary to the Hungarian Constitution. Mr. Pap noted, with regard to the practicality of ethnic profiling in terrorist prevention, that it has never been established that individual suspicion must always be determined before an arrest may take place, which makes efforts to protect against ethnic profiling problematic. Another participant raised the issue that in trying to solve one problem the EU has created another, as the definition of terrorism includes any sort of political activity that manifests in a certain way, and thus, the EU has in a way undertaken political profiling. Mr. Szikinger agreed with the remark but also noted the existence of a general commitment at least in words at the EU level that security and human rights strengthen one another. To which Mr. Halmai added that perhaps the question will be resolved in the interaction between national and ECtHR, ECJ fora, and more specifically to what extent the former is willing to incorporate the latter.

Afternoon Session

The afternoon session on the 30th, which was the last of the conference proceedings, dealt with the issues of national, regional and European identity. Gyula Hegyi, who is a Hungarian member of the European Parliament, chaired the session. Mr. Hegyi, by way of introduction, noted that the Parliament had recently voted on the minimum standards that Member States are to use when granting or withdrawing asylum. During deliberation the Parliament refused the notion of super-safe countries, which would have allowed for the automatic return of any asylum seeker coming from one of these countries. The Parliament, in its deliberations, also insisted on a universal and unconditional right to appeal in cases of asylum.

Following Mr. Hegyi’s introductory remarks, Zoltán Kántor, a member of the Teleki Foundation and Chief Editor of Regio, spoke about issues of ethnic renaissance and nation building. Mr. Kántor noted that, while some were surprised by the conflict that arose between states and minorities as a result of the nationalist organisation and movement that took place after 1989, the phenomenon was not new. He also noted that nationalist organisation is the most salient form of state construction, that it exists equally among majority and minority ethnic groups within a nation-state, and that the presence of nationalism had long persisted on a regional basis despite Marxist and Leninist ideology. Nationalism is also strong because states perceive people as nationals, and, thus, political discourse, even anti-nationalist discourse, is necessarily undertaken from within the bounds of the rhetorical logic of nationalism. In examining more particularly the case of Hungary and its neighbouring states immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Kántor identified a common trend: in general states adopted negative approaches with respect to the minorities living within their territory and positive approaches to kin minorities who were living abroad. Hence, the recent onset of a second wave of status laws in the region, through which a state offers preferential treatment to kin minority living abroad, can be seen as an attempt to refine notions of nationalism in order to reconcile cultural and ethnic notions of nationalism with existing political ones. Mr. Kántor argued that such ethnically and culturally defined nationalist trends are not new nor are they different from nationalist notions in other European states. He, furthermore, suggested that perhaps the renaissance can be understood as a reactionary response to EU approaches to nationalism that have institutionalised a political conception of nationalism and have responded negatively to ethno-cultural definitions of nationalism.

Balázs Majtényi, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Legal Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, continued the discussion on legal and political constructions and the uses of the nation by examining different interpretations in different European State constitutions. Mr. Majtényi initially identified two different roles of nationalism, one that serves the need to create a sense of belonging within members of a community and another in which nationalism serves as a necessary institution of the democratic community. He then referred to the Swiss Constitution, which, in failing to mention ethnicity, privileges a political definition of national over a culturally defined definition. Such a political construction is preferable, in the eyes of Majtényi, as it favours equal treatment regardless of ethnicity. He then insisted that, while a complete separation of cultural elements from political ones is of course not possible, the opposite, which would involve cultural aspects dictating entirely the political definition of a nation or vice versa, is neither advantageous. As a result, most the state constitutions that Mr. Majtényi highlighted make reference to the sovereign nation of people in addition to the community of citizens. The Slovakian constitution offers an exception in using only a cultural notion of nation. Refuting the notion that the concept of nation is outmoded, Mr. Majtényi insisted on its mediating role between the individual and the community. He also argued that culturally defined nationalism, which he referred to in its extreme form as constitutional patriotism, never states clearly enough its political constitution. The survival, according to his analysis, of a multi-cultural political community in Central Europe is in fact endangered by such conceptions of cultural nationalism.

Balázs Vizi, a PhD student at the University of Leuven and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Institute of Ethnic and National Minorities, gave the final presentation of this Challenge conference on EU enlargement. His discussion centred on The Constitutional Treaty’s treatment of minority rights. Mr. Vizi noted the appearance of minority rights in Article 2 of the Constitutional Treaty, yet he also referred to the long history of EU treatment of the issue prior to the drafting of the Constitution. While the main orientation of the Union has always been economic, the notion that it should take a more prominent role in human rights questions has become more widely discussed over the past ten years. In concrete terms, the European Court of Justice began making reference to the necessity of incorporating human rights into Community law. Mr. Vizi also noted an initial reluctance on behalf of the member states in incorporating the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights into Community law due to states’ fears of unwanted problems with the European Court of Justice. While consensus on the integration of the EU Charter into Community law was finally achieved, the question of whether minority rights protection would be included remained unanswered. While such rights are generally included in human rights protection agreements, there was reluctance on behalf of some Member States to specifically recognise minority rights. A final compromise resulted in identifying neither the specific minority groups nor the specific rights that are to be protected. The result is a rather vague framework of minority rights protection within Community law where even the Charter of Fundamental Rights fails to mention the specific minority rights that it protects. Mr. Vizi also noted that while the European Court of Justice made reference to the European Convention on Human Rights and to Member States’ constitutional traditions more generally, an there is a reluctance on behalf of Member States to adopt a common practice with regard to the Convention. In addition, according to his analysis, one fifth of the 25 Member States do not acknowledge the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which contains elements that apply specifically to minorities, such as protection against discrimination and the promotion of diversity. Finally, Mr. Vizi noted the existence of many non-legal documents that promote the respect for linguistic minorities. The fact that these protections exist in the political sphere rather than the legal one, that in legal terms specific minorities and specific rights are not identified, that the rights are referred to as fundamental values and not primary law and, finally, the fact that recent EU parliamentary decisions with regard to minority rights have made no reference to the fundamental values established in the Constitutional treaty, according the Mr. Vizi, all lead one to the conclusion that far less progress on the concrete legal protection of minority rights has been achieved than might have initially been imagined.

The discussion that followed this final presentation began with a question from a participant as to whether simultaneously existing regional, national and European identities were in general working together or in parallel. The same participant then offered the hypothesis that language protection measure served as an act of compromise that replaced concrete legal protection. Mr. Vizi agreed with the last comment, noting that linguistic minorities have become a common means for ethnic and cultural minorities to exert political pressure. Mr. Kántor added that such measures rarely satisfy minorities, as their final outcome does not yield minority group protection. Another participant wondered why, if nationalism is the most salient form of identity expression, no Germans say that they are proud to be German. Mr. Kántor replied that he felt that many Germans, especially young ones, are proud to be German and are angry at not being able to express it due to the historical context of German nationalism. Mr. Hegyi remarked, that national identity, nonetheless, did not descend from the heavens but rather was imposed through 18th and 19th Century educational and military practices. Thus, Mr. Hegyi continued, if we want a European identity, we must create it through common education, journalism, etc. Another question was posed about the rate of multiple citizenship in the EU, to which Mr. Vizi replied that such multiple citizenships were becoming less relevant within the EU. Finally, another participant remarked that Hungary’s data protection system in some ways inhibits the protection of minority interests, as it is difficult to identify who they are. Panellists generally concurred with this observation.

Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, Judit Tóth offered several questions that resulted from the research presented at this conference and, which, in her opinion, required further exploration. She suggested first further exploration with regard to the relationship between humanitarian utopia discourse and the practical political reality. Secondly, she noted that as cross-border cooperation requires an increased awareness and openness in the communities involved, she proposed further work on mental mapping in this regard. Ms. Tóth then proposed working on ideas for improving visa policy so that the visa screening mechanism functions as a legitimate tool of selection. She noted the importance of the observation that achieving security necessarily involves human rights protection. Because the war on terrorism operates on psychological terms rather than normative ones, she continued, political practice and activity don’t necessarily follow normative principles, especially with regard to the protection of minority rights. Ms. Tóth concluded by calling for continued work on the questions uncovered by the research presented at this conference, and she invited participants, in particular, to continue the exploration of these questions at the next Challenge conference in Malta in early December.

Graham W. Hill

12 October 2005, Budapest

Programm