Following up on some of the comments to this post from Doug Muir.
I’m with the other Doug on long-term prospects. As far as I know, no Western European state exists with an indigenous minority population approaching 30 percent.
Thus, the EU is asking the Macedonians (that is, the inhabitants of the former FYROM, regardless of ethnicity) to do something that none of its old members was capable of doing. It’s very much an open quesiton whether any European state is capable of coping with minorities of that size.
Why that should be is probably best left as an exercise for the readers.
As an aside, Estonia and Latvia both have minorities of similar scale. Though the Russian-speaking population on both sides of the border is, what is the best phrase, less restive than the Albanians in and around Macedonia.
Bosnia, of course, has this problem in spades.
Finally, if EU enlargement is one day to reach the Caucasus (which makes the Balkan ethnic mosaic look simple), the Union is going to have to get good at solving or at least ameliorating this kind of problem
Belgium. Switzerland is pretty close.
What exactly is it they’re asking that you think is unreasonable?
Cyprus too, but i don’t think their solution counts. Spain total percentage of minorities is also something big. And Holland had a very big religious minority
In Spain you have territorial minorities in Catalonia (some 6 millions), Euskadi+Navarre (2), Galicia (4), which add to some 12 millions in a population of 40 (I exclude nearly 2 millions of recent immigrants)
DSW
Well, as noted, there are at least three examples in Europe. There are also several examples of successful states in this category outside of Europe — Canada, Singapore.
A better question, perhaps, might be: is there an example of a successful state where the majority and minority get along as badly as Macedonian Slavs and Albanians do?
Doug M.
IIRC, Flemish and Wallons are not particularly good friends. And in Macedonia there was not that much tension in the recent past. What is worrisome is that it is easy to get people with different adscriptions to find reasons to hate.
DSW
Isn’t Belgium sort of perpetually verging on terminal constitutional crisis?
Historically speaking (sorta post-1848), it’s been difficult for titular nations to share “their” nation-state with another national minority. It’s also been difficult for national groups to accept living in a nation-state that is not their own.
States set up as confederations — Switzerland (CH, anyone?), Canada, Belgium for all I know — may have a better chance than your garden-variety nation-state.
Cyprus has actually shown the usual method for solving this issue. If the two halves re-form the state as a confederation, that will be something new.
Now that I think this through a little more, I should add that thorough repression of the minority is another traditional response. Here I’m thinking particularly of Hungarians in Romania, but other examples may spring to mind.
Hungarians in Romania… that gets complicated.
Short version: the Royalist government oppressed hell out of them, because it could. Then, the Communists under Dej actually treated them OK. Dej was an old-fashioned “internationalist”. Sort of like Stalin — he oppressed, imprisoned, terrorized and murdered more or less without discriminating. Even gave the Hungarians (well, some of them) their own autonomous region.
Then Ceausescu, who — among his many other striking characteristics — was a dickhead nationalist. He abolished the special autonomous region in 1968, and proceeded to slowly but steadily grind the Hungarians into the dirt. The usual crap — couldn’t use Hungarian in courts or official business or on street signs, no universities, informal but officially sanctioned and relentless discrimination, etc.
As a result, by 1989 there were actual refugee camps (the only ones in the Communist world) in Hungary, housing roughly 20,000 Hungarians who’d fled Romania.
Then since 1990, to make a very complicated story short, it’s been okay. Pretty good, even. A couple of nasty incidents near the beginning, but all Romanian governments since 1992 have been keeping a nervous eye on Brussels. So, universities, street signs, and a sharp decrease in overt discrimination.
Additional wrinkle: the aforementioned refugees were neither the first nor the last Hungarians to leave Romania. The Hungarian population has been gradually declining. It’s down to about 8% now, from a historical high of about 12%.
If you’re looking for a minority that’s traditionally been treated like dirt without anyone much caring… well, Gypsies, of course. But I’d point to the Bulgarian Turks. The targets of attempted ethnic cleansing as recently as the 1980s, and still poor, neglected, underrepresented, and the target of consistent discrimination at all levels.
The Bulgarians say that there isn’t a problem; and, remarkably, the EU seems willing to take their word for it. Strange but true.
Doug M.
I was thinking of Romanian governments pre-1989, but even with the relative bright spots, I think the case shows exactly what I meant by titular nations having difficulty sharing “their” nation-state with a substantial indigenous minority.
Exactly right about Roma & Sinti, too. Didn’t know enough about Turks in Bulgaria to use as an example.
I’d be interested, too, to find out more if Galicians or Navarre-ese see themselves as not-Spaniards. From this distance, those situations look more like Bavarians, Rheinl?nder or East Frisians in Germany than, say, Albanians in the former FYROM.