BOLZANO/BOZEN DECLARATION ON THE PROTECTION OF MINORITIES IN THE ENLARGED EUROPEAN UNION

On the 1st of May 2004 the European Union welcomes 75 million new EU citizens. With them the number of persons belonging to minorities living on EU territory will more than double. The new Union will not be larger in the sense of "more of the same", but rather considerably more diverse in terms of its cultures, ethnicities and languages. This greater diversity, with its particular histories, constitutes a significant challenge for the whole Union. In this knowledge, the Union was during the accession process very much engaged in enhancing the situation of the minorities living in the candidate states and ensuring their political stability.  However, when it comes to the minorities within the old member states, EU politics and EU constitutional law have so far remained silent. Now that the former candidate states are full fledged member states this infamous "double standard" has to come to an end. It remains still an open question whether new and old member states are going to fall back to a tacit policy consensus of disregard and  inaction vis-à-vis minorities or whether the experience of Eastern enlargement will spill over into the Union and effect a constructive role for the Union in the area of minority protection.

At the beginning of 2004, around 90 NGO representatives, experts and politicians convened at the European Academy Bolzano/Bozen to discuss the EU's involvement in the field of minority protection after EU enlargement. As a result of this meeting 17 experts drafted the "Bolzano/Bozen Declaration on the protection of minorities in the enlarged European Union" to be presented to the European Union.

To download the full text in pdf format, click here

The signatories of the Bolzano/Bozen Declaration (which were all speakers or respondents presenting papers at that event) are:

• Bojan Brezigar - President of EBLUL (Brussels) and chief editor of Primorski Dnevnik (Slovenian minority daily in Trieste).
• Boriss Cilevics - Member of the Parliament of Latvia and founder and consultant of MINELRES (minority electronic resources).
• Bruno de Witte - Professor of European Law at the European University Institute, Florence. He has worked for years on the protection of minorities and the diversity of languages within the EU system.
• Michl Ebner - Member of the European Parliament.
• Erik Friberg - Research Associate at the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts (USA) and affiliated with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden.
• Rachel Guglielmo - Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights & Conflict Resolution, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (USA). She formerly served as Director of the "EU Accession Monitoring Program" (EUMAP).
• Peter Hilpold - Professor of International and European law at the University of Innsbruck.
• Frank Hoffmeister - Legal expert who, after working for the DG enlargement, joined the Legal Service of the European Commission. He was also a researcher at the Walther Hallstein Institut.
• Joseph Marko - Associate Professor at the Institute of Austrian, European and Comparative Public Law and Political Science, University of Graz, Faculty of Law; Director of the Law School´s Center for South-East European Studies; Co-director of the Research department "Minorities and Autonomies" at the European Academy Bozen/Bolzano; former Judge at the Costitutional Court in Sarajevo.
• Stefan Oeter - Professor of public and international law at the University of Hamburg and director of the Institute of International Affairs Hamburg.
• John Packer - Visiting Assistant Professor of Int. Law at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy (USA); Director in the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the OSCE and Fellow at the JFK School of Gov., Harvard University.
• Steve Peers - Professor at Essex University and a member of its Human Rights Centre. He is a well-established expert in the various aspects of the standing of third country nationals within the EU system.
• Gwendolyn Sasse - Lecturer at the London School of Economics. She specializes in the field of Eastern enlargement and minority protection. Currently, she is a JM Fellow at the EUI Florence.
• Roberto Toniatti - Professor of comparative public law and Dean of the Law faculty of the University of Trento.
• Gabriel von Toggenburg - Researcher at the European Academy Bolzano/Bozen (research department "Minorities and Autonomies"), responsible for European integration and European Community Law. PhD researcher at the European University Institute Florence.
• Marc Weller - Professor at Cambridge University and director of the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg.

The conference proceedings, of which this Declaration forms an integral part, are edited by Gabriel N. Toggenburg and published by LGI books (Budapest/New York).