Contents
Contents
Editorial - 5
REGIONALISM AND/OR DESCENTRALISATION
Sabina Fati
Regionalism through Descentralisation or
Crisis through
Fragmentation? - 7
The
postponing of descentralisation, the overgrowth of central bureaucracy, the
state intervention in economy and a certain reluctance towards participating in
cross-border cooperation are all processes disclosing Romania’s hesitation in planning and implementing regional development strategies. While up
to the 1996 elections this tendency was accounted for by those days
government’s orientation, the acceeding to power of the democratic forces
after ’96 would have been supposed to show more openness towards
regionalisation processes.
Nevertheless,
the political forces now in power seem to carry on the policies of former
cabinets. Instead of making use of the possibilities regionalisation would open
up for the country, they have until recently rejected the process tending to
take it for the dissolution of the state and finally given into it only as a
concession made to the project of joining EU. In doing so, they have shown they
understand neither the core values of the European integration, nor the
strivings of the Romanian regions themselves.
Anna Bull
Regionalism in Italy - 19
The
study distinguishes three different levels of the regional question in Italy
which should be approached: the regions as administrative entities, regional
policy/development, and regionalism/federalism as a current of thought. Despite
the pressure put on the Government by some advocates of a federal State, the
question of whether to grant the regions autonomy rather than some measure of
administrative devolution of power was never seriously considered since
Unification. By contrast, the issue has now shifted and revolves around the alternatives
of introducing a federal system of government or granting the regions
considerable further administrative and fiscal powers.
In
terms of regionalism/federalism as a current of opinion capable of influencing
party politics, the issue at the time of the Risorgimento was how best to
reconcile and integrate so many different peoples and cultures. Federalism has
revived lately, thanks primarily to the rise and success of the Northern League
party, and it has recently influenced all main political parties.
In
terms of regional policy and regional development, the issue at the turn of the
century was how to achieve a redistribution of resources in favour of the
poorer and less developed regions of Italy, i.e. the South. Today it is the
very idea of State-funded regional development which is in question.
Liviu Chelcea
Regionalism of Banat Before and After
Communism:
Social Changes, Ethnic
Relations and Historical Memory - 39
The
study sets as its aim to disenchant one of the strongest myth of the Banat region:
that its high degree of tolerance — unparalelled by any other Romanian region —
shown towards its own multiethnic and multicultural structure is not inherent,
not an essential and ahistorical trait (both state institutions and the
population held nationalistic views was, but one which has been reinforced
during the communist regime as an act of resistance to the official policies of
erasing any sort of differences and also as a means of communication with the
outside (European) world; in the post-communist years the (self-)perception of
the Banat region’s tolerance has developed even more, up to turning into fact.
Both cultural (its historical backround of convergence point of many nations
and states) and economical factors (the region enjoys the highest welfare
within Romania) have contributed to this.
Károly Gruber
Regionalism, Nation-States, European
Integration,
Central-Eastern and
Western European Perspectives - 54
The aim
of the paper is to understand how the dynamics of regionalism, nationalism and
the deepening processes of European integration influence each other. The
study highlights both the problems of regional development within and outside
the Union and also outlines a future-oriented vision of an enlarged Europe,
able to accomodate the aspirations of regional, national and transnational
political and social identities at the same time.
Through
the analysis of the recent developments in Scotland as a ‘stateless nation’ of
the European Union and in Romania as a country which wishes to join the Union
as soon as possible and whose population includes substantional number of
ethnic minorities, especially ethnic Hungarians, the paper outlines how the
ideas of national sovereignty and of the decentralisation of state power are
interpreted and sometimes misinterpreted by the various political actors in
both Eastern and Western parts of Europe and how it will affect the long-term
development of the Union.
DIALOGUE
Alice Brown and David McCrone
A New Parliament and the Future of Scotland - 77
The
debate sets Scotland’s new parliament in its historical context, its
establishment being accounted for by the end of convenience in the ‘marriage of
convenience’ which the Union has been since 1707.
A lower
level of government, closer to people, will enable Scotland to make a better
use of its economic potential. On the other hand, the Scottish identity is
gaining more and more weight. New opportunities are open within the European
Union and Scotland can make herself better heard in Europe if she has a voice
of her own. The success of the Scottish movement might also prove to be an
incentive for other British regions to institutionalise their status. Whether
the devolution process will stop once the Scottish Parliament will start
working or the Scots’ demands will further increase aiming at independence
remains to be seen.
ANALYSIS
Will Kymlicka
Ethnic Relations and Western Political
Theory - 95
While
Western political theory and practice can provide the newly-democratizing
states of Eastern and Central Europe a model regarding individual and civil
political rights, they cannot do so regarding ethnic relations because the
interest in this field is relatively recent even in the West and it has been
raised only as a consequence of finally having been realised that differences
implied by ethnicity will not go away, as the myth of ethnocultural neutrality
of the modern state has assumed, but will have to be accommodated with.
A
second reason for Eastern and Central European countries’ impossibility to take
on a Western model of managing ethnic relations is their completely different
historical background (which has given birth to specific types of minorities
and, consequently, minority issues which the West has never faced) as well as
their present lower economic status.
Gabriel Andreescu
Universal Thought, Eastern
Facts:
Scrutinizing National Minority
Rights in Romania - 148
A
response to Will Kymlicka’s study, the paper contends that there is a universal
core to ethic values underlying minority rights and that Western democratic
countries lately have been approaching ethnic relations not by looking back to
the past, but forward to the future; these two facts could and should
constitute a model to be followed by Eastern and Central Europe. If they do
not, as it is the case with Romania, it is rather because of the lack of
political will and because of viewing minorities as scape goats for whatever
failure in the transition to democracy. On the other hand, the granting of
minority rights implies lower costs than denying them (the latter demanding a
strengthening of repressive measures), so the economic argument cannot hold,
either.
DOCUMENT
Law on Regional Development in Romania - 175
Law on the Ratifying of
the European Charter
of Local Self-Government - 181
European Charter of
Local Self-Government - 182
István Haller
Regional Self-Government in the
view of the Council of Europe
and of the Romanian Legislation
188
The
comparative commentary points out the lacks in the Romanian laws on
regionalisation and self-government: the very notion of self-government is
ignored, there is no guarantee of protection of regional self-government
against central institution interference, in the setting up of a development
region the population has no say (as they should according to European
Charter).
TRANSYLVANIAN CONVERGENCIES
Gábor Flóra
The First Theoreticians of Transylvanism - 195
The
change in the political and territorial status of Transylvania at the beginning
of the 20th century prompted the Hungarian ethnics, who had become a minority,
to build up a new theoretical system in order both to clarify their identity
and to properly claim their rights from the Romanian state of which they were
now a part.
In the
beginning, Transylvanism stressed the convergency elements of the history of
the different ethnic groups — Romanians, Hungarians, Saxons, Jews — which, in
the view of Transylvanism theoreticians, had lead to a distinct Transylvanian
identity; but met with distrust by the Romanian state, Transylvanism ended up
in scepticism and in a defensive position meant to safeguard the Hungarian
minority’s identity.
ECUMENICA
Nonka Bogomilova
The Ethnically Aggressive
Instrumentalisation of Religion
in South-Eastern Europe - 208
By the end of the past century
it seemed that religion had exhausted its potential as justification and
instrument for civilization clashes or imperial and cultural hegemony. But our
century proved the unreliability of rational forecasts. Instead of being
recoursed to as the universal bind of humankind, religions are seen in their
differences from one another and as catalysts of conflicts. Paradoxically,
clashes of civilizations are less based on the main historical religions than
on communitiy differentiation within single civilization areas: conflicts
between Catholics and Protestants (North Ireland), between Catholics and
Orthodox believers (Croats and Serbs), among Orthodox believers themselves
(Greece and Macedonia).
While Western prosperous
countries seek hegemony through economic and military means, poorer countries
resort to ideologies and instrumentalise religion in order to legitimate their
distinct identities. This is why ethnic conflicts religiously legitimated have
occured so frequently and have had such high intensity in South-Eastern Europe.
REVIEWS
Adrian Marino and the European
Idea - 218
The
three books reviewed — Pentru
Europa, Politică şi cultură, Revenirea în Europa — highlight their author’s
genuine commitment to the European idea: he points out what we are (Europeans
by culture, history, geography) and what we are not, or not yet (Europeans by
civilization, politics and welfare).
Europa - 222
The on-line
journal mirrors European diversity not only in its institutionalised forms
(which are now a topic highly in fashion in academic circles), but also in its
cultural dimension.