ABSTRACT
East Central Europe has remained an area of political and social tensions in spite of the EU accession of 11 post-communist countries and intense transition processes since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 (see, for instance, Blanchard 1997; Fassmann 1997; Gabrisch and Hölscher 2006; Illés 2002; Mansfeldová et al. 2005; Risse et al. 2001; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2006; Turnock 1997). The ‘European Project,’ as attractive as it appeared to the new member states of the European Union (EU), has not (yet) succeeded in overcoming tensions between neighbouring states, majority and minority populations, and economic ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of the transition period, to mention just a few examples. The persistence – some would argue re-emergence – of inter-ethnic antagonism in the ethnoculturally diverse countries of East Central Europe is especially critical. The reasons for these tensions are manifold: lack of inter-ethnic dialogue and reconciliation, lack of knowledge about and understanding for each other, conflicting ethnic discourses in the public debate, exclusion of national and ethnic minorities from nation-building, nationalist and assimilationist policies, the ‘ethnic card’ as a convenient instrument to distract the public from other, for instance, socio-economic, problems, and also an EU (enlargement) that has neglected sensitive (non-violent) inter-ethnic issues.
