Policy Brief 38, CRPE March 2014 Authors: Dragos DINU, Octavian MILEVSKI
The topic of minority rights and associated Ukrainian policy on minorities generated interesting debates and discussions during the Civic Forum in Kiev earlier this year. We took note of the different approaches and perceptions of the Romanian and Ukrainian participants on this matter and decided that we would prepare a policy brief to provide additional details on the main ideas expressed during the Forum.
The bilateral Romanian-Ukrainian agenda has been suffering from a mutual understanding delay for over twenty years. During the past two decades, the two neighbouring countries have hardly moved into the direction of each other’s interests and towards common foreign policy objectives that could have been formulated for this region. The issue of minorities remained one of the main stumbling blocks in the way of a dynamic, mutually rewarding and comprehensive friendly relationship between the two Central East-European countries. This report which should be analyzed in a wider perspective, as it complements the other two policy memos prepared in the project, provides recommendations for both, Romanian and Ukrainian authorities on the sensitive matter of minorities. The full report, in English, is available here.
Read also – IWP has published, under the same project, an analytical paper “A Call for the EU — Time to Step in. Ukraine’s Expectations from the European Union”
This policy brief is prepared in the framework of the Second edition of the Romanian – Ukrainian civil society Forum.
The project is financed by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Official Development Assistance, supported by UNDP Bratisvala and implemented in partnership by Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE) and Institute of World Policy (IWP).