PROJECT ON ETHNIC RELATIONS

This book is a challenge launched by the most valuable specialists from the State Secretary Office within the Ministry of Education, Research and Youth, (enforced by the personnel from Regional Centre PER) which deals with education designated to national minorities in national minority languages from Romania. The authors of this book try to find the solutions for systematic orientation of the education towards natural approach of an intercultural constituent.
The paper can be also considered a comparison instrument for understanding the others. The book can create curiosity for everything that belongs to another cultural and/or linguistic space.

Gabriella PA!sztor

State Secretary
Ministry of Education and Research

Foreward, Gabriella PA!sztor, State Secretary, Ministry of Education and Research

Chapter III equality of chances in education through teachers training and educational policies, Maria Koreck, Program Manager, PER Regional Center

The research carried out by Marius Cosmeanu, is part of the program â??Straightening the development capacity of local multiethnic communities for maintaining interethnic relationsâ?? stabilityâ?? initiated by PER Regional Center and deployed in collaboration with the Department for Interethnic Relations, Government of Romania.

Coordinator: Koreck Maria

After 20 years (introduction)
The experience gained during almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall
shows that the transition from Communism to a democratic system with a free
market economy is a process not quite easily manageable. This is due to numerous
and complex reasons, one of them being the degree of ethic heterogeneity. Many
authors who are supporting this thesis suggest that the pace of the reforms in
some of the post Communist societies in Central and Eastern Europe has been
slower than the expected during the enthusiastic ending of 1989; this being
mainly due to a rather higher proportion of ethnical minorities. One of their
arguments holds that ethnical cleavage allows some political actors to shift public
attention from social, economic and political reforms related debates (indeed
necessary but not rewarding electorally speaking) to debates regarding the rights
of the ethnical minorities (BÄfdescu AYi Kivu, 2005).

Please find bellow the research, the text in English follows the text in Romanian.

4×4:Management models in Multiethnic Communities

Introduction to the History of National Minorities from Romania

The interethnical disturbances can be caused on many occasions by a simple lack of knowledge of the â??otherâ??. The History of the National Minorities from Romania is a guidbook designated firstly to History teachers and with the aim of eliminating this lack of knowldege by offering information on national minorities from Romania, looking to strenghten the respect for diversity in the complex reality context of nowadays society represented by co-existance of different ethical and religious identities. Continua articolul

It is with great pleasure that the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) Regional Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in Bucharest, PER in Princeton, New Jersey, USA and the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages announce the roundtable discussion entitled Towards a functioning minority protection in the European Union â?? The need for a long-term strategy on the basis of the European Parliament resolution organized on November 5, 2008, in the European Parliament, in Brussels. The roundtable brought together members of the European Parliament, representatives of EU institutions, Member State Governments, intergovernmental organizations and minority policy experts.

As part of the conference series entitled New Approaches to the Issue of Minorities in the European Union launched in December 2007, the roundtable addressed the issue of preparing a long-term strategy of minority protection in the European Union. More specifically, the discussion took up, among other subjects, policy recommendations towards the realization of such a strategy on the basis of a European Parliament resolution, the necessary instruments of such a strategy, as well as the potential implementing agents of a minority protections system in the European Union.

Preliminary Report

roundtable discussion organized by

The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) Regional Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe,
PER in Princeton, New Jersey, USA
and the
European Parliament’s Intergroup on Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages

On May 7, 2008, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) Regional Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in Bucharest, PER in Princeton, New Jersey, USA and the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages organized a roundtable discussion entitled Towards a European Parliament Resolution on National Minorities in the European Union. The roundtable organized in the European Parliament, in Brussels brought together members of the European Parliament, representatives of EU institutions, Member State Governments, intergovernmental organizations and minority policy experts. The discussion was co-chaired by Livia B. Plaks, President of PER and Csaba Tabajdi, Chairman of the EP Intergroup for Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages. The key-note speakers of the roundtable were Attila MarkA3, Secretary of State of the Department for Interethnic Relations from Romania and Gabriel N. Toggenburg, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Minority Rights from Bolzano, Italy.
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Bucharest, 2007 November 15, Hotel Majestic

The PER Regional Center accepted with pleasure the invitation made by OSCE-ODIHR to participate to the field visit in comunities in which police interventions and conflicts between Roma and police were signaled. (ODIHR Report on field visit)
â?oRoma and Police â?? Promoting dialogue, mutual confidence and cooperationâ?? is an important issue, especially taking into account the fact that during the last two years police as well as some of the ethnic communities were involved more often in violent conflicts, phenomenon which we thought was left behind since 1995.
In the period of 1993 -1998, PER had several programs that aimed to improve the relation between police and Roma in Romania, the reports can be accessed at www.per-usa.org and www.per.org.ro. After 1995 PER noticed that police is making significant efforts in order to reform its activity, to handle also the aspects of police â?? multiethnic communities relations and that this process is ongoing ever since.
During 1993 â?? 1995 in several Roma communities violent acts occurred. The case analysis reveled that the non-implication of the police led to the escalation of the conflicts and to victims from the Roma communities.
It is somehow a paradox, that in the violent cases between Roma and police during the past two years, the case analyses shows that now some problems related to the intervention method of police, especially what concerns the excessive force use through which civil ethnic Roma persons, who were in fact not the target of the police intervention, ended up as victims of these interventions.

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National Campaign promoting the knowledge and the acceptance of diversity

REPORT 2007

The polls made among young people from Romania show a very high degree of intolerance for cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity. The experience of the states, which joined EU shows the possibility that after EU accession this phenomenon might increase.

The European Union is actually a community of minorities, where knowing the other may be a vital resource for each person, but also an asset which gives the community a more powerful identity.

Based on the evaluations of the National Council of Audio Visual, the TV broadcasts, the Internet, the radio broadcasts, but also the â?oliveâ?? meetings, such as a contest, have the biggest impact on the civic behavior of the target group (young people between 10-30 years old).

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The Department for Interethnic Relations of the Romanian Government in collaboration with the PER Regional Center for Central, East and South East Europe organized in Bran on August 29 – September 1, 2007 a Seminar entitled:

CONTENT OF AUXILIARY TEACHING MATERIAL REGARDING HISTORY OF NATIONAL MINORITIES IN ROMANIA

The seminar is continuing the series of debates entitled THE ROLE OF HISTORY RESEARCH AND TEACHING IN INTERETHNIC RELATIONS organized by the PER Regional Center for Central, East and South East Europe with the support of The Department for Interethnic Relations and the Ministry of Education and Research in October 2006, February and March 2007.

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The Project on Ethnic Relations and its PER Regional Center for Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe based in Romania, invited a group of Serbiaâ??s minority council presidents, experts and senior parliamentarians to discuss the present situation of the minority councils in Serbia, the existing drafts for a new Serbian law on minority councils, and recommendations for improving the work of the councils and their effectiveness.

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