MINELRES: ECMI Working Paper: Russian-speaking Minorities in Estonia and Latvia
MINELRES moderator
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Thu May 27 17:57:49 2004
Original sender: William MCKinney <[email protected]>
New ECMI Working Paper
Van Elsuwege, Peter. Russian-Speaking Minorities in Estonia and Latvia:
Problems of Integration at the Threshold of the European Union. ECMI
Working Paper #20. April 2004, 68 pp, appendix.
http://www.ecmi.de/doc/public_papers.html
The presence of large non-titular communities in Estonia and Latvia has
proven to be the most pressing of political and legal challenges related
to the restoration of the Baltic states' independence in 1991. Recent
signals from Council of Europe and European Union representatives have
not brought clarity, but contribute to the existing ambiguity
surrounding the legal status of Estonia's and Latvia's Russian-speaking
and often stateless minorities. This paper traces the origins of the
existing problems, taking into account the Baltic states' specific
historical and constitutional framework. In addition, the author
evaluates relevant EU legislation in order to define the rights of
non-citizens in an enlarged European Union.