2013.03.30.
A Dél-Tirol fővárosában élő Thomas Benedikter közgazdász és társadalomkutató terjedelmes, de igencsak tanulságos tanulmányát sorozatban közöljük. Minden szombaton megjelentetünk egy részt, élőlinkkel hivatkozva az azt megelőzőre. A magyar nyelvű fordítás elkészítéséhez önkéntesek jelentkezését várjuk!
1.4 Autonomy in Europe in a historical perspective [ 5 ]
In the European history since the 16th century some forms of autonomy of religious communities have been sanctioned for different minorities as the Protestants in Catholic regions, Jews in different countries, Muslims in Christian areas, Catholic and Orthodox Christians and Jews in the Ottoman-Muslim areas. This latter system of religious and cultural autonomy, called Millet-system, was employed during the Ottoman Empire until 1918. Under this system Jews and Christians were allowed to maintain their own laws and customs in the personal realm, operate their own courts, run their schools and impose taxes on their own members. The abolition of these millets and the increasing repression of ethnic and religious minorities added substantially to the resistance of the local peoples of the Balkans against the Islamic rulers.
In the first half of the 20th century autonomy was established in various cases to contain political conflicts provoked by territorial readjustments after World War I. Certain national minorities in Central and Eastern Europe were accorded a territorial autonomy as a viable substitute to self-determination by the victorious powers of World War I as the Free City of Danzig and the Memel territory. But on the whole the solutions applied were defective and their inadequacies provided a pretext for aggressive nationalist neighbors or kin-states as Nazi-Germany to build up new threats.
In the post-World War II atmosphere of the Cold War there was an unfavorable environment for a broad political discussion on autonomy. Although the right of all peoples to self-determination had been enshrined as a fundamental principle of international law in the UN-Charter (1948) and in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and Freedoms (ICCPR 1966), its application was limited to peoples colonized by the classical colonial powers (excluding the new forms of colonialism exercised by developing countries), whereas national minorities and indigenous peoples within independent states could not claim to be beneficiaries of the right to self-determination. Autonomy as a group-right in Europe was perceived rather as a threat to existing states, most of them based on a historical background of a „nation-state" (with some exceptions as Switzerland, Belgium and most recently Bosnia-Herzegovina). In presence of more than a hundred of national minorities a collective right to autonomy was not seen as a substitute to full statehood or a tool for „internal self-determination", but as an invitation to break up the existing state structures.
Europe, as well as Africa and Asia in particular, presents a complex mosaic of ethnic, cultural, linguistic variety with many different kinds of national minorities (cf. also Essay I on minority rights in Europe in this volume) with different aspirations. Many of them were facing serious difficulties to survive as a cultural group with a distinct collective identity. A general political approach to accommodate all this claims was not conceivable at that time, but many conflicts could have been solved with a clear international fundament of minority rights and autonomy concepts. Nevertheless some states in Western and Northern Europe found a way to politics of recognition and protection of national minorities through constitutional arrangements and special national laws. A growing trend to general decentralization or regionalization of state structures (Italy, France and Spain) and devolution (Great Britain) granted national minorities more cultural rights. Special forms of autonomy were established in Italy and Denmark, apart from Europe's oldest working autonomy, that of the Aland Islands in Finland. Belgium offers an example how a previously unitary and centralized state transformed gradually into a federal state providing cultural and linguistic autonomy to the three historical ethnic communities, the Flemish (Dutch), the Walloons (French-speaking) and the German speaking minority in the East along the border with Germany.
Aiming to accommodate the strong political aspiration of their historical smaller nations Spain in its 1978 constitution recognized the „right to autonomy of the nationalities and regions which make up the Spanish state" (Art. 2). Hence, in the last decades Spain transformed from a highly centralized state under the Franco regime into a nearly federalist state today. This prevented the country to glide into an escalation of secessionist conflicts, in particular with Catalonia and the Basque Country. In Great Britain Northern Ireland had to wait until 1998 to find a viable, internationally agreed solution based on the devolution of most governmental powers to Belfast. Northern Ireland reflects the case of a deeply divided and highly segregated society with a history of discrimination, deprivation and exclusion of one community – the Catholic one – from political power. In France the claims of various national minorities as the Corsicans, the Britannians, the Basques and the Alsacians for being granted at least cultural autonomy were stubbornly rejected on the ground that the French constitution does not recognize any other national community than the French one. Italy, by its constitution of 1948 a regionalist state, due to historical reasons established also 5 autonomous regions to accommodate the respective national minorities (Aosta, South Tyrol, Sardinia, Friuli) or a strong regionalist movement (Sicily). Nevertheless it took 25 years to implement this complex structure, which is yielding results since the 70ies.
The minority question in Europe has gained a significant momentum during the 90ies in the aftermath of the breaking up of the former Yugoslavia. The following series of secessions and military rebellions of ethnic minorities on the one hand and of ethnic cleansing with a victim of the four recent Balkan wars (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia) claimed over 200.000 lives and two million people were temporarily or definitely displaced. The repression and persecution of ethnic-linguistic minorities in many parts of Eastern Europe has provided further impetus for a reconsideration of the inadequacies of existing mechanisms. In the states of the former Eastern bloc the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia has threatened the very cultural existence of many national minorities leading to violent reactions (Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Macedonia and in the Russian Caucasus). Finally the reshaping of the map of Europe has not produced national homogeneity within the new states, but with nearly no exception every 28 state of Central and Eastern Europe contains significant ethnic or linguistic minorities. It is against this background that autonomy is actually considered by both states and minority representatives.
It has to be acknowledged, however, that some experiences of autonomy and consociational arrangements in Europe bitterly failed. Cyprus and Kosovo reflect the cases of a deeply divided societies with a history of discrimination or even oppression and persecution (in the case of Kosovo) of the respective ethnic minority, the Albanians in Kosovo and the Turks in Cyprus. In the latter first the ethnic conflict between Turks and Greeks produced protracted constitutional crisis, later serious international tensions. In 1974 Turkey intervened with military force to protect the Turkish population and the island was divided in two ethnically homogenous parts in the North and South. There has not been any attempt to solve the crisis through an effective autonomy regulation, but only through half-hearted ant-discrimination provisions. In Cyprus, to territorial autonomy was not given any chance.
In Kosovo in the same year 1974 a radical reform of the autonomy existing since 1948 for this region inhabited by a 90%-majority of ethnic Albanians, was launched which put the Kosovars nearly on an equal footing with the other constituent peoples of Yugoslavia. The multicultural region of Vojvodina in the North of Serbia enjoyed a similar extent of autonomy in the framework of the socialist and federalist architecture of ex-Yugoslavia. But in 1989, while the rest of Eastern Europe celebrated the transition to democracy and freedom from dependency on the Soviet power, Serbia turned to a oppressive nationalist regime, starting with abolishing Kosovo's autonomy. Not the autonomy as such failed in Kosovo, but the policy of nationalist denial of fundamental rights to smaller nations inhabiting a part of the state's territory. Subsequently the whole Titoist construction of brotherhood of socialist federation of nations collapsed in a bloody mess which culminated in the wars of Bosnia 1992-95 and Kosovo 1998-99. The „ethnic cleansing" and civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the bloody repression of self-determination of a small Caucasian people, the Chechens, by Moscow since 1994 and the secessionist break away of some other smaller ethnically distinct regions in Eastern Europe as Transnistria (Moldova), Abchasia and South Ossetia (Georgia) and Nagorni Karabagh (Azerbaijan) has proved the inadequacies of existing mechanism of power sharing and minority protection.
The sensitivity with regard to autonomy in whatever form is still very strong in quite a number of member states of the Council of Europe. There is widespread fear of the spiral „cultural autonomy, self-government accession. It has to be seen in the light of the working historical and newly established autonomies whether this concept has indeed in Europe generated secessionism, or, on contrary autonomy has accommodated the legitimate claims and interests of national minorities within existing state boundaries. In this sense, international law, far from having accomplished with the minority rights, has to face the challenge to develop the internal aspect of self-determination, which, based on democratic representation and the rule of law, creates a political and legal space of „internal self-determination", confined to a territory, This more conciliatory approach to national minorities claim is enforced by ever more tighter cooperation in Europe in international organization or supranational institutions. And it can convince the state majorities that autonomy is in their own interest if peace and fundamental rights are to be preserved. (to be continued) Bolzano/Bozen, 19. June 2006 www.gfbv.it/3dossier/eu-min/autonomy.html
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A működő autonómiák Európában – The working autonomies in Europe – Angol nyelven – 5.
2013.04.06. | 10:28
Population (2005 estimated): 26.711
Land area: 6.784 km2
Capital: Mariehamn
Official language: Swedish
Autonomy since: 1920
A Dél-Tirol fővárosában élő Thomas Benedikter közgazdász és társadalomkutató terjedelmes, de igencsak tanulságos tanulmányát sorozatban közöljük. Minden szombaton megjelentetünk egy részt, élőlinkkel hivatkozva az azt megelőzőre. A magyar nyelvű fordítás elkészítéséhez önkéntesek jelentkezését várjuk!
Chapter 2: Europe's working autonomies
2.1 The Aland Islands (Finland)
Not less than 6554 islands form the archipelago of the Aland Islands, only 50 of which are permanently inhabited. Although since ancient time part of the Swedish cultural area, these islands by historical coincidence in 1809 came to Russia. As a part of the Grand Duchy of Finland, dependent from the Zarist Russia, the Swedish Alanders enjoyed some cultural rights. Yet, at the end of the Zarist Empire in 1917 the Alanders were denied self-determination and became a part of the newly independent Republic of Finland. Sweden disputed this change in status and the issue was settled by the League of Nations in 1920, when Finland recognized the Alanders' right to maintain their culture, language and traditions and to enjoy a demilitarised and autonomous status. In 1920 the Finnish parliament approved the Law on self-administration of Aland, which established the first official territory with autonomous status in Europe. The Russians endorsed this arrangement as former „Protection power", renewed this support in 1940 and again after 1945. Aland today is considered one of the most advanced forms of political autonomy in the world.
Aland's Self-Administration Law, called „Autonomy Act" in 1951, has been revised several times with its last version approved the 16 August 1991. Legislative power is vested in the 30-member, unicameral Landsting. Representatives are directly elected and serve a four years term. In addition to the islands' internal administration, the Aland Islands form a single electoral district for Finnish elections in which Aland citizens fully participate. The Landsting may legislate on all matters affecting the Aland Islands except those specifically reserved for the central state, namely constitutional law, foreign relations, general taxes and payments, criminal and most civil law, the judiciary, social insurance, navigation and aviation and communication. Aland is responsible for cultural affairs, health and hospital care, education, vocational education, and regulation of occupations, housing and social welfare, conservation, public entertainment and the maintenance of public order and security. The Landsting shares legislative powers with the parliament at Helsinki in that is has the power to directly propose legislation concerning the islands even in those functional areas reserved to the federal branch. However, the Finnish constitution reserves to the president of Finland the power to unconditionally veto laws enacted by the Aland government, after receiving an opinion from the Supreme Court or from the Aland Commission, if he believes that the legislation encroaches on matters reserved to the federal government or the internal or external security of the state. The Aland Commission serves as a liaison between the Aland government and the central government in Helsinki. The Finnish President also has the power to dissolve the Landsting and order new elections. On Aland the President of Finland is represented by a Governor, selected from the largest party in the Landsting. On the Alands executive authority is vested in the Landtagsstyrelsen headed by the Landradskandidat, the chief minister.
Regarding the judiciary the Aland Islands do not have a separate judicial system and rely upon the Finnish system of municipal and district courts as well as the Supreme Court in Helsinki for the administration of justice in the country. The finances of the Aland Islands are managed by the Landsting and the joint Aland Island Commission. The autonomous islands bear most of the cost of self-government and possess the authority to levy taxes on income. The Landsting determines the annual budget and raised needed revenues through taxes and charges for the use of government facilities. The joint Aland Island Commission determines the amount of monetary transfer from Helsinki to the Aland government for its performance of services or functions carried out elsewhere by the Helsinki government. Finland levies usual national taxies and customs on Aland, but 0,45% of Finland's total revenues are drawn back to Aland. The Landsting can freely allocate the whole annual budget of the islands. Regularly expenditures for social assistance, health care, education and culture make up for the lion's share of the budget. Due to its autonomy and solid finance system Aland has a stable economy and high living standard.
As for the language policy already in 1899 a first „Language Act" Finland declared both Swedish and Finnish to official State languages, attributing to Swedish a privileged position. This led to an advanced system of bilingualism in many areas with Swedish speaking minority in Finland. On Aland, on contrary, the official language is Swedish and the administration monolingual Swedish. Aland's civil servants must by law be fluent in written and spoken Swedish. The schools use Swedish as medium and English as compulsory subject, Finnish, German and others are optional as „foreign languages". Aland Island citizenship or „native locality" is granted to Aland residents or non-Aland Finns who have resided in the island for 5 years. Non-Aland citizens may be denied the right to purchase land and the right to exercise a commercial activity. Aland Islands citizens possess dual, Aland and Finnish, citizenship, and are free to participate in Finnish politics and are subject to Finnish law, although they are exempt from compulsory Finnish military duty. The Aland „citizenship" is also required to exercise the active and passive franchise. The citizenship can also be awarded by the Autonomous Government, provided the applicant can prove to know sufficiently Swedish.
Since 1975 Aland is a member to the Nordic Council on an equal footing with the Scandinavian states and the autonomous islands in Denmark. Aland could decide independently whether to join the EU in 1995 or not. Still some EU-provisions, e.g. the customs union is not in force on Aland, which can freely opt out form single regulations of the EU. The special rules for the regional membership had to be safeguarded in the Finnish EU-accession treaty. Aland's autonomy has been expanded step by step to a point where it can be qualified as a „state in the state", just short of independence. Aland since many decades is demilitarized: no military bases may be installed nor can any military personnel be stationed on the islands. (to be continued) Bolzano/Bozen, 19. June 2006 www.gfbv.it/3dossier/eu-min/autonomy.html
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