Roundtable Discussion – 17-18 March 2022
INTEGRATION THROUGH PARTICIPATION: FACING CHALLENGES TO MINORITY CONSULTATION
University of Glasgow & Liverpool John Moores University
The event is part of the project ‘Integration through Minority Participation: Addressing Challenges to Social Cohesion in Post-Covid Europe’, implemented by the University of Glasgow and Liverpool John Moores University. Academic experts and institutional practitioners/advisers discussed factors conducive to effective minority participation in decision- and policy-making at different levels of governance and in transborder cooperation. The workshop focused on the role of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) in these processes, and on how OSCE participating states may facilitate inclusiveness of consultative mechanisms as part of their due diligence responsibilities.
The themes of the event will be further discussed at a follow-up workshop in Liverpool. Both meetings will generate policy reports offering reflections and recommendations to be shared with relevant institutional parties within the OSCE.
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THE IMPACT OF THE UKRAINE WAR ON MAJORITY-MINORITY RELATIONS & KIN-STATE – KIN MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Expert Workshop – Liverpool, 22 June 2022
University of Glasgow & Liverpool John Moores University
The half-day workshop discussed the impact of the war in Ukraine on the role of kin-states on the one hand, and on the accommodation of kin-minority groups on the other. While at the start of the 2000s, a kin-state’s trans-sovereign engagement was welcomed in so far as it protected and promoted the culture and identity of its co-ethnics abroad, in the last few years we witnessed an increased instrumentalisation of kin-state intervention.
In the case of Russia, this instrumentalist intervention has now escalated to the point of initiating a full-blown inter-state war with Ukraine. Yet, at the same time, the escalation of war in Ukraine has seen other kin-states – notably Poland – place a new emphasis on humanitarian duties as part of their trans-sovereign engagement. The participants asked whether the fallout from the war in Ukraine might serve to reduce the instrumentalization of kin-minorities by kin-states elsewhere in the region, and whether the current crisis provides an opportunity to strengthen existing norms guiding the 'triadic' relationship between kin minorities and the respective states.
The Liverpool workshop was a follow-up event which is part of a wider project entitled ‘Integration through Minority Participation: Addressing Challenges to Social Cohesion in Post-Covid Europe’, implemented by the University of Glasgow and Liverpool John Moores University. The project features exchanges and collaborations with a range of academic and practitioners and is largely inspired by international standards of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities on minority participation, integration and good neighbourly relations. The first expert event was held in March 2022 to discuss a wide range of issues of minority participation in relation to pluralism, decision-making, and cross-border matters, including the early developments in Ukraine.
The workshop consisted of two hybrid sessions that featured short, themed presentations followed by a roundtable discussion. The presentations were given by the project partners: Dr Andreea Udrea, Dr Federica Prina and Prof David J. Smith of the University of Glasgow; and Prof Gaetano Pentassuglia of John Moores University. The event was attended by academics working in the field of minority studies and by policy-makers.
