Article

 

Communalism and Minority within the European framework  (p.81-94)

by

Trifonas Kostopoulos, Panteion University

Keywords : European integration, European Union, communalism, minorities

JEL classification : P1, P2, P5

Abstract

The article analyses the process of European integration and focuses on the principle of supplementarity. The old issue of social solidarity and collectivity, which has again come to the fore by the Maastricht Treaty in the form of a policy of decentralisation and redistribution of the Union\'s policy-making purviews in favour of the lower echelons, is analysed focusing on the vital question: Is the principle of supplementarity within the EU framework the communalism of our era or the alibi of centralism and bureaucracy? Within this framework a significant role is assigned to national minorities with regard to the course of integration of the nation states, and in this sense the national minorities of Europe are presented, analyzing their own particular forms of community organization, which may either lead to their integration within the main national corpus or to their marginalization.