Forgotten Minorities

With the judicial and educational reforms of countries perceived as recalcitrant within the European Union occupying the limelight, affected minorities often fly under the radar.

Hungary’s and Poland’s recent reforms concerning the structure and curriculum of their educational systems were put under the international microscope as examples of efforts to raise a more “patriotic” generation of citizens. While these policies can be seen as overly nationalistic, they are being implemented in societies where the size of ethnic minorities, compared to other countries in the region, is rather small.

In Poland, more than 97 per cent of the population identify as being of Polish ethnicity. Hungary, alongside Czechia, is considered to be ethnically largely homogenous. Given the lack of ethnic minorities of significant size in these societies, “nationalisation” efforts often focused on the integration of small ethnicities into the majority nation (retaining their identity, as opposed to the assimilation of these minorities).

Other countries in Central and Eastern Europe have much larger ethnic minorities. Romania, Serbia and Slovakia have majority ethnicities which make up between 80 and 90 per cent of these societies. Elsewhere in the region, in countries such as Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine, ethnic majorities constitute less than 80 per cent of society.