Presentation of findings of two targeted studies concerning minority rights in South East Europe

As part of the Council of Europe-EU joint programme “Promoting Human Rights and Minority Protection in South East Europe”, the College of Europe has been managing a research project assessing the level of awareness of minority rights mechanisms in the region, as well as the level of success of 36 local projects funded by the programme.

The Council of Europe published on their website a presentation of findings of the two studies carried out so far. The report highlights a few important elements:

  • The research underlines a low awareness of minority rights;
  • All respondents consider minority rights important but have different opinions on how to protect them, varying from learning local languages, to education and employment.
  • The local projects are deemed to be relevant in all beneficiaries;
  • A recurring risk is the general difficulty in engaging the minority groups;
  • The greatest difficulties were found in projects addressed to Roma minorities.

The two studies were an awareness assessment of minority rights mechanisms in the seven beneficiaries taking part in the Project, which was published in October 2015 (and can be consulted here); and a study aimed at assessing the 36 local projects being funded by the programme at the inception phase, which was published in July 2015 (and can be consulted here).

The projects will be assessed again at the end of the implementation phase in the coming months in order to identify best practices and problem solving mechanisms.

The presentation of findings can be consulted here.