Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 16th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview IV. Working Group on Democratic Governance of Multiethnic... Author(s) Rustem Ablyatifov Lviv Regional Institute of Public Administration, NAPA Lviv Ukraine Abduramanov Artur, Artur Alyauddin Abduramanov Title The European integration process for Ukraine: Ukrainian national idea vs multiculturalism policy File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Understanding that rights of national, ethnic, religious, linguistic and other minorities are integral parts of a general system of human rights protection and that these rights must be effectively safeguarded by the national legislation and the international law gained special importance in the early 20th century. Drastic changes in Europe were evidently caused by integration processes, of which enlargement of the European Union is of paramount importance. Experience of the new EU Member States could encourage improvement of Ukraine’s respective legislation. Human tragedies and losses inflicted on economies as a result of local and regional wars in Europe after disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Federative Republic of Yugoslavia had especially negative impact on national minorities and indigenous peoples. These tragic events served as a major reason for the EU’s special concern over the minority protection in CEE countries. The EU enlargement to CEE countries gave it powerful tools of influence on political, economic and social processes in transitional economies that have not yet built a system of democratic public governance and sustainable civil society. These factors adversely affected the plight of national minorities in the region, whereas previous regimes urged the power to pursue such a policy being guided by mistaken methods for promoting social consolidation. Nevertheless, it was weakness of new regimes attended with the intention of CEE countries "to live in a common European home" that made them flexible enough to effect, within a relatively short period of time, radical changes in their domestic ethnic policy and establish legislative and executive structures regulating rights of national minorities, preventing their discrimination and ensuring harmonious relations of the majority and minorities. The EU institutions developed their joint policy and criteria for the candidates’ compliance with requirements on effective protection of minority rights. In June 2000, the Council of Ministers adopted a new directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin that marked an important improvement, particularly in its introduction of and prohibition against "indirect discrimination" and "harassment". And though, at first glance, the Ukrainian state declares about own strong tack to European integration, there are different points of view about approaches to this issue among even stalwarts of the integration of Ukraine to the European community. Hence, the Ukrainian public policy for European integration remains inconsistent and unclear, including policy regarding implementation of ethnic diversity management. Besides issues of adoption of the Ukrainian legislation to the European standards, it should overcome discrepancy between various political parties. Two conceptions of public ethnic policy have clashed in Ukraine now. The right political parties, first of all, of national-democratic orientation, are feeling some threat for the Ukrainian nation from the multiculturalism policy. They contend that under existing conditions when an “Ukrainian national idea” is not formed and it can not talk about an “Ukrainian political nation” as the accomplished fact, at first, it must be overcome the consequences of colonial and Soviet domination. On the other hand, political parties of pro-Russsian orientation try to use rhetoric about an equality of rights in multi-ethical country so as to keep the dominant positions of the Russian language and Russian-speaker population on the South-East and South of Ukraine. Thus, the most of urgent challenge for ethnic diversity management is the search of ways to compromise between the largest ethnic communities of Ukraine.
