ABSTRACT: The opinions of an informal group established in the Radical Party on the problem of nationalities.

CONTENTS:

0. Introduction

1. The question of the nationalities

1.1 Nationality and State of citizens

1.2. State organization and minorities

1.2.1. Correspondence between State and nation

1.2.2. State and multiethnicity

1.3. The State of citizens and the rights of the minorities 1.3.1. Nonterritorial federalism 1.3.2. Self-determination or self-government

1.3.3. Self-government and integration

1.3.4. Self-government and democracy

1.3.5. Federalism and electoral system

1.3.6. Ethnic community, national minority, co-nation 1.4. Transfrontier regions 1.5. Transfrontier communities

1.5.1. Linguistic communities

1.5.2. "Ethnic-national" communities

1.6. Transnational minorities

1.7. Cohesion of the State and democratic-internal federalism 1.8. Other - new - forms of State organization 1.9. Minorities and mechanisms of supranational guaranty

2. Europe

2.1. The European community

2.1.1. Limits of the E.C.'s current integration process 2.1.2. Analysis - Widening 2.1.3. Refoundation

2.1.3.1. Europe and human rights

2.1.3.2. Europe and citizens

2.1.3.3. Europe and the rights of the minorities 2.1.3.4. Europe and regions 2.1.3.5. Europe and ethnic communities

2.1.3.6. Europe and communication

2.1.3.7. Europe and the security policy

2.2. Toward other regional integrations?

2.2.1. Danubian Federation ?

2.2.2. Balkan Federation ?

1. The question of the Nationalities

(Radical Party seminar, Sabaudia 4-8 September 1992)

Rome, 30 July 1992

As a result - also - of a conversation with the First Secretary, an informal group of people was formed (Edmondo Paolini, Luciana Rosa, Marino Busdachin and Olivier Dupuis) who tried to analyse and express some opinions on the problem of the nationalities.

As you will notice by looking at the "contents", a second part "is lacking".

* * * * *

On starting this attempt to analyse the subject "Europe and the question of the Nationalities", we would like to clear the field from a series of misleading concepts.

First of all, we would like to disown the concept of self-determination (and its corollary: the rights of the peoples): such concept, in most cases, has been used by the so-called leading groups to repress every right of the individual in the name of the desired independence, to trample on every human right, to present the violent way to independence as the only possible one, and - as a consequence - once the "liberation" is achieved, to build a new centralized, Jacobin, often totalitarian State, often even less respectful of its political, ethnic, religious or other type of minorities than the State which they considered themselves the victims of.

We would like to replace this concept of self-determination with that of "self-government", meaning an instrument for a given (mono- or multi-ethnic) community to rule itself in all spheres in which this "government" were more effective, as well as closer to the citizens, than if it were organized by the central establishment. It is a concept which has direct links with those of interdependence and subsidiarity. This does not alter the need for coordination both with the other "federate" entities - when the entity is part of a larger State ensemble - and with the neighbouring states, in the case of internationally acknowledged states.

Secondly, we would like to at least attempt (experience tells us that it is a very difficult attempt) to clear the concept of federalism from some of the meanings it had assumed for many people in Central and Eastern Europe following political historical experiences, in particular in the former Yugoslavia, former Soviet Union and former Czechoslovakia, it is associated to.

Federalism, as the root of the word itself conveys, means "putting together". Therefore it is a voluntary act, impossible to achieve by definition (unless its meaning is changed) in non-democratic regimes, and - all the more - in totalitarian regimes. Therefore, it is the opposite of the disruption and disintegration feared by the conservative sectors of the former single parties of the communist regimes, which have now converted to nationalism in many countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Why this distinction? Because from the Balkans to the Caucus, from the basin of the Danube to the Asiatic region of the former Soviet Union, unto - obviously - those member states of this highly precarious, weak and scarcely democratic European community, between and inside each of these existing states, there will be no capacity to confront the new and major challenges of our time, and therefore chiefly a peaceful and mutually profitable coexistence among nations and ethnic groups, as well as a sustainable development, accessible to all and respectful of the environment, if they do not find, among them and inside each other, new VOLUNTARY and DEMOCRATIC, therefore FEDERAL-DEMOCRATIC ways of organizing the interdependencies, the places to operate together and to protect the common interests.

1.1. Nationality and State of Citizens

However, these principles are extremely general, and often difficult to apply in the complex and at times dramatic situations now existing in Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, while it is true that one of the most important borderlines that separate democracy and non-democracy passes by the State of citizens, advocated, among others, by the President of Bosnia, Izetbegovic, and the various pan-national projects, starting with that of Milosevic, this does not solve the problem of the articulation, in a regime of democracy, between those rights the exercise of which needs to be organized in a univocal way, and the rights the exercise of which needs to be diversified according to the ethnic group, or rather, according to the relevant ethnic-cultural community.

1.2. States and nations

The great number of ethnic problems opened in the European continent is matched by a great diversity in the approaches. Between those who believe that it is the same and identical phenomenon, with the same causes and the same effects, and those who believe that the causes and the effects are as numerous as the cases, we would like to attempt a systematic approach to the issue. We will start by making a distinction between situations in which there is a correspondence between territory and "ethnic group", and those in which there is no such correspondence.

1.2.1. Correspondence between territory and nation

The first case refers to a clear-cut geographic separation among the various nationalities. Cases of this kind have mostly been solved, throughout the centuries, and especially during the past century, through these nations' access to national independence. However, it is to be remarked that - in spite of what might seem today - the geographic separation among the various ethnic groups was rarely well-defined, and that both the processes of independence of yesterday's "nations", and those of today (as the ones "planned" for tomorrow) have often been achieved to the detriment of other "nations" or "ethnic communities" contained in these new territorial entities which gained access to independence or to autonomy (for example, the case of Alto Agide and Belgium), which changed state (Transilvania) or which were "absorbed" by or annexed by other state entities (Alsatia, for example). Policies which are not equivalent, obviously, and which ranged from transfers (and often massacres) of populations (such as the Ta

rtars of Crimea), to the pure and simple denial of the national identity (as in the case of the Macedonians living in Greece), to a more or less compulsory assimilation under legal coverage (for example, Catalunya, Bretagne), to the population policies tending to change the ethnic structure of a given region, to the bureaucratic prevention of the use of given rights on the part of the "minorities"....

1.2.2. State and multi-ethnicity

The second case refers to situations of such geographic intertwining among the various ethnic groups that any hypothesis of geographic-ethnic-based independence or autonomy seems impossible. One of the most emblematic cases of this kind of situation is represented by Bosnia Herzegovina, where three major "ethnic-religious communities" live scattered on the territory.

Situations of this kind, for which there are obviously precedents in history - we need only recall the division (in this case on a religious more than ethnic base) of the Indies and the subsequent and tragic population transfers between India and Pakistan - highlight the dramatic difficulty of articulating the rights whose exercise is equal for all citizens and those whose exercise is different according to the "ethnic" identity. In these cases, also because there is no serious reflexion on the aforementioned articulation, the possibilities of choice are limited to the - concrete as much as racist and antidemocratic - so-called ethnic redistribution and to the - democratic but slightly abstract - one called "State of citizens".

1.3. The State of citizens and the rights of the minorities

While it should be clear that the approach to the new-old national issues can only be that of the State of citizens, in other words the democratic one, which guaranties identical rights to all citizens, there remains the problem of the rights whose application and exercise (but not the substance) needs to be diversified according to the fact of belonging to one ethnic community rather than to another.

1.3.1. Non-territorial federalism

These rights include those called "personalizable" ones (see the modified Belgian Constitution) and those called "cultural". The former imply a direct relation between the citizen and the state institutions and administrations (the justice system, for example, but also public health...). The latter concern on the one hand the faculty for the citizen to understand and express himself in his mother tongue (education, radio and TV information...) and, on the other, the possibility of "living" his own culture, which can be linked to cultural independence proper (culture, and therefore also international and national relations with the other cultures or with the communities of a same culture living in other countries).

Deformed by the myth of self-determination, the idea of self-government for the exercise of these rights has almost never been separated by that of territorial self-government. Until now, democratic federalism - or infra-national federalism - has always been achieved through the State's delegation of some of its prerogatives (not just administrative) to a number of federate entities, whose reality and tangibility, as for the State, were based on and linked to a territory.

Only in the Austrian-Habsburb tradition (Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, among others) can we perceive some first developments of a theory of self-government for those ethnic communities which cannot be linked yo a precise territory. In the more recent history, the Belgian legislators tried to revive this concept, giving birth to a federal organization of the state, based on two pillars: the communities (for the "personalizable" matters and the strictly cultural ones), and the regions (for the other delegated matters). Unfortunately, with the exception of the Brussels-Capital region (in which territory the two communities can exert their competences), they caused a correspondence between communal identity and regional identity, thus preventing the minorities inside the regions from "experiencing" their peculiarity as an "ethnic-linguistic" minority in the institutions of another ethnic-linguistic community.

1.3.2. Self-government and integration

This intuition - together with its partial achievements -, while attractive under many aspects, poses a series of questions. In particular, as regards the necessary integration, failing which a human community, and more specifically a state community, can hardly survive. Without wanting to solve the entire problem, one could answer that in a state organization characterized by autonomy or a "communal" self-government, there should also be a classic or territorial federal organization, also with the purpose of "forcing" the various communities to work and decide together on the issues (or on most of them) which concern them indistinctly or regardless of their "ethnic" identity; we are referring to the problems that go under the subject "territory" (economic, environmental, urbanistic, housing, transport policies,..., in their aspects that pertain to the regional dimension) and not to the "ethnic-communal" identity.

1.3.3. Integration and linguistic democracy

Integration also means capacity to communicate, and therefore to understand each other. It is an extremely delicate issue. There is a direct link between language and national identity. And, very often, even slightly questioning its value as the only means of "national" communication is immediately perceived by the "majority" nation as a threat to its very existence. In the same way, language, and the possibility of practising it, represents for the minority "nations" the most tangible sign of their diversity, and therefore of their existence as a distinct group.

The question of communication, which can be linked to the concept of linguistic democracy, needs to be tackled both inside the states in which various mother tongues are used, and in the federations among linguistically different states (and - as a consequence - also for the question of global communication) by trying to overcome, or at least limit, the situations, the behaviours, the "imperial" type of public, "state" (or "federal") relations, ensuing from an inequality faced to the knowledge of a language. The problem is by no means a secondary one. In fact, democracy itself fails when a person is discriminated for the fact of ignoring a language. Cases like this can occur, for example, when a defendant is tried in a language other than his mother tongue.

Historically speaking, the question of the language of communication has been confronted and "solved" (though often only for a period) through the imposition of the language of the strongest group as the language of communication. Examples of this kind are almost unlimited: they range from Latin in the Roman empire to Russian in the Soviet empire, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese in many countries of the so-called Third World. On the other hand, state systems have emerged more recently also as a result of processes of "national emancipation" where two or more languages have achieved the status of national language (bilingualism or multilingualism), such as Canada, India, Belgium, many African countries...or in the European community. Such approach, in addition to involving high costs, does not solve the question of the communication among most groups, as it is limited to specific institutional and administrative circumstances. Moreover, it is an approach which, for obvious technical and financial reas

ons, could hardly work in state structures where a great number of languages would coexist, as proven by the example of the European community, which counts, to date, nine official languages.

Unless, therefore, we accept the prevalence of "imperial" languages, whether they are so only regionally or nationally vis-à-vis "minority" languages, or whether they are so universally, as in the case of English, the only alternative we consider feasible is a political approach to the issue of the choice of a frank, neutral language of communication among people with different mother tongues (and not only, therefore, among experts and "élites"). This is a reflexion which has been started only recently, and unfortunately very marginally, by a European community which faces huge problems ensuing from the coexistence of nine official languages.

1.3.4. Self-government and democracy

The hypothesis of a non-territorial federal institutional structure is often challenged on grounds of its non-feasibility in a democratic form. We consider this objection groundless: we cannot see why an ethnic community shouldn't be capable of electing, in a democratic way, its own "communal parliament" which would appoint a "communal government" in charge of the management of the policies of that given ethnic community. Obviously, the question is not - and it is not the purpose of these notes - that of abstractly creating the global list of all the groups that should benefit from one institutional structure rather than another. The principle of reality should rule over such issue: in other words, in this case there should be the awareness, on the part of the ethnic group, of existing as a distinct community and the resolve to assume, as a separate community, the management of the "affairs" it considers its own.

Clearly, such choice would involve a series of problems as regards the methods of representation and of election. However, we do not consider them insurmountable. The definition of the districts, for example, could be faced in a completely normal way, thanks to censuses which, in most cases, already provide for the specification of the nationality. Or, and perhaps ever better, according to the choice of the elector: therefore a voluntary and secret choice, who would choose, on voting, the ethnic community he feels he belongs to. Such identity, therefore, in addition to being secret, could be modified at the following vote.

The problem, if anything, is more general, and concerns the political system and, in particular, the mechanisms for the election and the formation and operation of the elective and governmental assembly (assemblies). There is no reason to rule out the onset for regional assemblies of the same effects induced by party power which have emerged or are emerging in most of the states of new or old democracy of the European continent at all levels of representation (parliamentarian and municipal, in particular). However, in the case of the system for the choice of the community through the vote, the single "communal" district is mandatory and, therefore, the proportional electoral system.

1.3.5. Federalism, democracy and electoral system

We consider it appropriate, therefore, to link the question of the institutional articulation of the minorities in their states of belonging to the question that concerns the nature of the institutional-electoral system in force in these "federate" structures. In other words, we believe that here too, the choice is between governmental democracy (Anglo Saxon system) and representative democracy (proportional system).

The link is more direct than might seem. In fact, while it is preferable, for the above described reasons, to combine the communal federal dimension with the regional federal dimension, the existence, also in this second dimension, of a majority system becomes a guarantee (though obviously not an absolute one) that the coalitions will not be made on an inter-ethnic basis, thus creating the conditions for an effective co-operation among the various ethnic groups.

As far as the allotment of the financial resources among the various ethnic-linguistic communities is concerned, they could also be calculated according both to a census and to the electoral results, i.e. with the attribution to each community of a threshold of financing (which would somehow be corrected or pondered) in relation to the number of "members of the Community".

In alternative, or in a complementary way, the various autonomous entities could be given - as for the German Länder - self-financing powers through autonomous taxes and levies. In this case, however, the citizens' "communal" belonging should be patent and official.

Regarding the question of the financing, the system of fiscal equalization in force in the Federal Republic of Germany, which provides for automatic mechanisms of redistribution of resources among the rich and the poor Länders, could represent an important factor of solidarity and cohesion on a national level among the various communities.

As regards the above mentioned "objection", i.e. the scarce or no democratic characteristic of such institutions, we deem that precisely the absence of such institutions can be one of the chief causes for the enhancement of the "totalizing" characteristics and of the weak "rate" of democratic dialectics of many of the parties of the current national minorities. In fact, in the absence of such democratic federal-communal institutions, there prevails the logic of the "union" defence of the interests of the "minority community" vis-à-vis the majority, the closure, versus the confrontation of ideas and the democratic dialectic in the minority itself and among the minority (or minorities) and the majority. Not to mention the more general effects brought about by the absence of these institutions: first of all, the enhancement of the feelings of mutual mistrust among the "majority" and the "minorities", often fueled by century-old oppositions due to the absence of clarity and definition in mutual relations.

1.3.6. Ethnic community, national minority, co-nation

Another question concerns the very definition of "ethnic community" and/or of "national minority". This is an extremely delicate questions, for many reasons. First of all, because it clashes directly with the national feeling of the dominant ethnic group, or with its monopoly to the right to correspond, as a nation, to the national territory as a whole.

It is a question which is not limited to the case of the Serbs of Krajina, of the Armenians of the Upper Karabach or of the Hungarians of the Sezekely Fold: these are ethnic minorities on a national scale, but on a regional scale they are majorities who have lived in those areas for centuries; but also in the case of the Turkish, Moroccan, Algerian communities (to make a few example) who have been living for various decades in various countries of Western Europe, often concentrated and with the desire to preserve their own strong cultural characteristics.

In a number of concrete cases (but so far only in the cases of "old settlements") "thresholds", minimum percentages have been established through "laws on the rights of the minorities", which, once achieved, automatically opened the possibility for the minority ethnic communities to benefit from a series of rights. While the numerical aspect, in relation to the total population of the country and/or in relation to that of a given region, undoubtedly represents a significant fact, we believe the fundamental fact is the population's awareness itself of representing a "minority", i.e. a distinct community. It is a fact which, nonetheless, which can only have a meaning in its democratic expression, that is, through elections and referendums.

An in-depth analysis started by a number of national minorities on the concept of "co-nation" could be useful as far as this aspect is concerned. Not only in the sense of full "con-participation" in the life of the country, but also in the sense that the acknowledgement of its existence should not represent a "positive discrimination" against the majority, but a functional division of certain tasks and responsibilities between "majority" and "minorities". Apparently "semantic", such issue is very often perceived as a fundamental one by those ethnic communities which, while a "minority" and eager to self-govern the moments of their ethnic peculiarity, want to contribute, in all aspects, to the life of country they live in. In this sense, the terms "co-nation", "community" or "ethnic community", are preferred to the term "minority", which they perceive as pejorative, as a synonym of "secondary category". Such terms, while underlining the specificity, do not include this pejorative aspect.

1.4. Transfrontier regions

Special attention should be given also to "transfrontier" regions, i.e. those regionally concentrated ethnic regions situated between state frontiers: as in the case of the Basque country, between Spain and France, the Serbian Krajina, between Croatia and Bosnia. In order to have a dynamic approach to this reality, we deem it useful to examine this complex phenomenon, in full evolution, in the European Community. In the community there has been a multiplication of direct agreements among (institutionally recognized) regions of different countries. For example, between the Provence-Cote d'Azur region (France) and the Piedmont region (Italy), between the Nord-Pas de Calais (France) and Wallonie (Belgium), between Catalunya (Spain) and the Sud-Pyrénée region (France). The European Community has given a first, very cautious acknowledgement to this evolution by including a new institutional (consultive) figure of representation of these regional entities in the Treaty of Maastricht (article 198). Another example

of such agreements outside of the European Community is the inter-regional Alpe Adria co-operation between the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region, Slovenia and the bordering Austrian region.

In addition to the handicap represented by the yet unsatisfying role given to the regions in the European construction and architecture, the question of the transfrontier region also clashes with the existence, in certain countries and in particular in the states with a Jacobin tradition (France first of all) of a regional (or, more precisely, in these cases a "decentralizing") architecture, built not on common feelings of belonging, but on "technocratic" criteria which barely cover, behind supposed geographic and economic reasons, the central state's intention of hindering the re-emergence of real autonomies. In France, for example, with the exception of Corsica, none of the regions (Basque country, Bretagne, Catalunya) where a drive to self-government has re-emerged over the last centuries has been included in the so-called "regional" architecture of the French State.

1.5. Transfrontier community

Not only the "ethnic-national" regions, but also the ethnic communities in the previous sense, cross the frontiers. Even if the distinction is slightly arbitrary, the prevalently linguistic communities are handled differently from the "ethnic" communities strictly speaking.

1.5.1. Linguistic communities

There are several cases of this kind in Europe. The "French-speaking" community, for example, which includes, in addition to France, the Wallonie (Belgium), the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland and the "French-speaking" citizens of the city of Brussels and of the Aosta Valley. But even the "German-speaking community", which includes, in addition to Germany and Austria, the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland, the "German-speaking community of Belgium", the "German-speaking" citizens of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Russia,...Or the "Italian-speaking community" which, in addition to Italy, includes the "Italian-speaking" cantons of Switzerland, the Italian-speaking communities of Slovenia and Croatia.

In this context, there are several examples of more or less organized and "supranational" "co-operation". The diffusion of French is certainly one of the most active institutions of this kind. It includes about forty countries, it has a permanent structure, it gathers at a top level (heads of State and government) once a year, but it does not have a democratic representative institution. Apart from the predominant role held by France, this organization based on the defence of a language and a culture has strong characteristics of resistance to another language (English), and therefore also carries out the function of international affirmation for a country, in addition to representing a place to keep "privileged relations" with other States, mostly former colonies. The Iberian-American community is similar to the French-speaking model. But more often, the policy of these transnational linguistic communities boils down to the cultural policy of the "cultural homelands" (such as, for example, the "German-speak

ing" or "Italian-speaking" communities).

1.5.2. "Ethnic-national communities"

Apart from these prevalently linguistic-cultural communities, there are communities with stronger "national" or "ethnic" affinities. For example, the "Serbian community", which includes, apart from the Serbian Serbs, the Serbs of Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina, Hungary, Rumania,...Or the "Rumanian community" which includes, apart from the Rumanian Rumanians, the Rumanians of Ukraine, Vojvodina and Hungary. The "Russian community", which includes, apart from the Russian Russians, the Russians of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan...or the "Hungarian community" which includes, apart from the Hungarian Hungarians, the Hungarians from Slovakia, Ukraine, Vojvodina, Croatia, Rumania, Slovenia and Austria.

Obviously it is difficult, if not impossible, to trace a frontier between those communities which would be prevalently "linguistic and cultural", and the ones which would rather have more "ethnic-national" characteristics. In a certain sense, the communities themselves, through their representative institutions, should "decide" it, in other words, choose the type of relations, the type of co-operation to establish amongst them.

1.6. Transnational minorities

This "category" includes the minorities that live between more than one State, but which have neither a state nor a territory of reference which is somehow "institutionally recognized". These are "peoples" who are both strongly integrated in the social structure of the countries where they live (they speak its language, often contribute in a conspicuous way to its cultural "characterization",...) and have a strong "parallel" life, separated from the national population of the country they live in. The most emblematic cases of this "category" are represented by the Gypsies and the Jews (there are, obviously, other cases outside of Europe, the Tuaregs, for example). Without wanting to analyse the question of the Jews, we believe it would be interesting to understand how the fact of having obtained a national state influenced their perception of representing a transnational people, and how the existence of this state has acted and still acts on their relation with the cultures of the states-nations in which the

y live today.

These transnational peoples find their cohesion on the basis of linguistic factors. Factors which are not univocal, but which are often linked to the territorial presence. This applies both to today's Gypsies and to yesterday's Jews, who cannot understand each other through their language. Not for this reason, however, the Gypsies believe they do not represent a single people. In both examples, the feeling of "national" identity is based on common cultural and social elements, but also, for the two examples given, on a factor of "ethnic community" (it is not relevant, in our opinion, whether the "ethnic continuity" exists "genetically" or not).

Expanding the terms of the analysis, we could wonder whether other human communities, while not united by the ethnic factor, should not be considered "transnational peoples". Thus, for example, certain Christian communities of the first centuries after Christ, certainly not "ethnically homogeneous", which experienced, they too, a double integration: in the country of residence or of "citizenship" and in their own (transnational) religious community. A similar reasoning could be developed, today, in the case of religious communities such as the "Witnesses of Jehova") or of several protestant churches. In this same sense, we could see the case of the Anabaptist churches of the Middle Ages and that of many of the "communist" churches of this century.

But let's further analyse the "Gypsy" question, the one most pertinent with these notes which, for the moment, we want to limit to the European context. If, as maintained by the leader of the Roms of Rumania, Gheorghe Nicolae, it is necessary for the Gypsies to be given the "legitimacy of (their) difference" together with the "equality of (their) citizenship", we consider it necessary to devise political and institutional formulas in order for this particular legitimacy to be articulated with that of the state-nation as a whole and, consequently, for a true partnership to be established with the majority population.

In this case, the question is not imagining proposals of territorial autonomy, or even of territorial and/or national independence. Even though, as regards this point, there are talks of giving the Rom people a land, a state-nation, as with Israel for the Jews. Recently there was explicit talking of settling them in the territory of Königsberg, currently a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania. And this not on grounds of peculiar characteristics of the Gypsy people, but because the Rom themselves don't want it: "the Roms, a European people without state-nation, choose no homeland other than democracy".

While it does not seem pertinent to linger on a hypothesis of a "Rom State", not for this reason we should rule out the creation of a form of representation and communal self-government for the Rom people (or, for the Rom people at an initial stage). On the contrary, we consider a reflexion in this sense both desirable and urgent. For various reasons. First of all, because it seems impossible to us that the struggle for "emancipation", which the Rom people is pursuing, cannot be achieved thanks only to nongovernmental organizations and/or union-type of "ethnic" parliamentary representation. On the contrary, we believe that such emancipation can be achieved chiefly through the reform (not the cancellation or the destruction) of institutional structures of representation and self-government which are currently completely intrinsic in the Rom people (s); in other words, without any legal assistance neither for the states nor for the citizens (Rom or not), and therefore mostly with no links with the criteria of

democracy.

In this sense, the "communal" form of representation and self-government, in the above mentioned sense, could represent an important element of acknowledgment of their existence, and therefore a growth in responsibility both of the Roms vis-à-vis themselves and society at large, and of society itself vis-à-vis the Rom community. Moreover, it could contribute to the enhancement of a political leadership and of its autonomy toward the "rich" and "integrated" classes of the Rom people. Lastly and chiefly, it could facilitate knowledge, and therefore mutual respect, and consequently represent a remedy against the growing misunderstandings and tendencies toward intolerance which the Rom people are victims of.

Clearly, the question would be that of defining the spheres of competence of this "community". A definition which cannot simply be copied from that of the national ethnic communities we mentioned above, given the peculiar relationship existing between the Rom peoples and the other States and peoples of the States in which they live. However, it seems to us that both the self-government of certain matters linked to education, and in particular the teaching of the Rom language and history, and the self-government of the specific Rom culture should be organized.

With this we touch upon a fundamental aspect of the "Rom issue": its transnational characteristic. It is a particularly delicate aspect, for various reasons. First of all, because of the absence of European institutions in which the Rom issue can be globally linked and therefore confronted. In fact, the only "Pan-European" institutions in which the Rom issue can be confronted today on a relevant, if not global scale, are the Council of Europe and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE): intergovernmental institutions with almost no political incidence, with the relative exception of the Council of Europe as regards human rights.

Without waiting for the birth of a federal union of the European States and regions (United States of Europe), which, as will be see further on, seems to become less and less plausible, it seems to us that a series of precise - and to some extent intermediate - objectives can be pursued in view of this federal and European federalist objective. Inside the EC and its institutions, in the member states in which there are more or less numerous Rom communities, a status as transnational minority could be devised for the "Rom community". Such status could serve as a model for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and even be integrated in the association agreements which the EC is gradually stipulating with these countries.

Inside the EC, but in connection with the Council of Europe, a series of mechanisms could be devised, aiming to encourage the so far marginal attempts of certain Rom scholars in the direction of a codification-unification of the Rom language. Lastly, always inside the EC, a reflexion should be made on the ways to associate the non-territorial and transnational communities (and therefore the Rom community) to the Consultive Council of the regions, provided for by the Treaty of Maastricht (article 198).

1.7. Cohesion of the State and democratic-inner federalism

1.7.1. The question of the "loyalty" or loyalties

In the case of the "minorities" of minority ethnic "communities" there arises a problem of "loyalty". On the one hand, these minorities (unless they have no "ethnic" counterparts in any part of the world) feel united to those who, outside of their state of citizenship, share their culture and/or belong to their "ethnic group". On the other hand, the members of these ethnic communities are citizens of a State, and, as such, have rights and duties toward this State, whence an attitude which is often defined as loyalty toward the State.

In fact, if the minorities or minority ethnic communities are not denied the legitimacy of having relations with the "ethnic-cultural homeland", these relations are often viewed with mistrust by the "majority community", with the suspicion that the "minority communities" feel a greater "loyalty" toward their "cultural and/or ethnic homeland" than toward their "citizen homeland". Or, even worse, with the suspicion that these relations are nothing but covers for projects of separation, "self-determination", or, in some case, of unification with the "ethnic-cultural homeland".

1.7.2. Possible multi-identities and therefore multi-loyalties

In this context, we believe the field in which solutions should be found is that of clarity. The risk lies not in the fact of experiencing loyalty both toward an "ethnic-cultural homeland" and toward a "homeland of citizenship", i.e. in the coexistence in people of possible multi-belongings of various kinds, but - if anything - in the impossibility of experiencing them openly inside democratic, recognized institutions visible to all, complementary and not in competition. Moreover, the acknowledgment of the autonomy of the "ethnic communities" eliminates the need for them to address themselves to the "outer world" in the attempt to seek protection and guarantees that they may be obtained by the state of citizenship, by its institutions.

1.8. Other - new - forms of state organization

Apart from possible new forms of institutions and/or state articulations ensuing from the opportunities opened by the processes of supranational integration - a point we will analyse further on - we could ponder whether other forms of state organization and "interstate" institutional articulations are conceivable, starting from the considerations advanced as regards minorities and/or ethnic communities.

For example, as far as the transfrontier regions are concerned, can institutions common to territorial areas belonging to two or more states be hypothesized? Or, in the case of "non-territorial communities", is it possible to imagine that the ones relative to a single "ethnic group" can confront their common problems in a common institutional forum? Concretely speaking, in the case of "former Yugoslavia" - unless, obviously, the racist and fascist policy of "ethnic cleansing" prevails - could "Serbian", "Croatian", "Albanian" communal institutions be conceived, including representatives both of the national state (Serbian, Croatian, Albanian, etc) and of "non-territorial communities" (Serbian, Croatian from Bosnia Herzegovina, for example) and of the minorities (Serbian, Croatian, etc), present in other states? It is a question which could obviously be extended also to several other European and non-European "ethnic groups".

In addition to difficulties such as the ones we encountered when we tackled the problem of the "loyalties", there arises the doubt - also in the light of what is occurring in the former Yugoslavia - that outside of a larger and comprehensive process of supranational integration, such institutions could be conceived, accepted and lastly guarantied in the context of bilateral or multilateral agreements.

1.9. Supranational guarantees

In the above mentioned cases of the "transfrontier" and "non-territorial" minorities, the existence and the functioning of supranational federal institutions appears fundamental for a peaceful and democratic solution of the question of ethnic co-existence. But not only. Also in the case of the national ethnic communities or of the co-nations, the existence of a political-juridical-institutional structure capable of guaranteeing the full respect of the rights and of acting as "arbiter" in cases of conflict, appears fundamental.

It seems to us that there are two possible solutions. The first one, already experimented by Austria and Italy in the case of Süd Tirol - Alto Adige, is of a bilateral nature. In this case, the State that "hosts" the minority ethnic community and that which we called "ethnic-cultural homeland" sign a bilateral agreement which defines a series of rights and duties for the various parts: the hosting State, the State which is the "ethnic-cultural homeland" and the ethnic-national community. However, in these cases, a fourth part should often be included in the agreement: the community of the national majority ethnic group, which is a minority in the region considered by the agreement. We have to bear in mind that with the attribution of a special status to regions inhabited by "ethnic minorities" there arises the possibility - as proven by the case of Alto Adige - of seeing one minority transform itself, in that region, into a majority which in its turn oppresses a minority belonging to the national ethnic grou

p in majority.

The other solution needs to be entirely discovered and invented. It is the solution of the supranational guaranties. Even if it can be linked to certain historical experiences, including that of the Society of Nations before World War II, one of the chief functions of which was that of guaranteeing the rights of the minorities, in particular of those minorities that arose following the Treaty of Versailles. With the results we know. Today, the European Community on the one hand, the Council of Europe, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the U.N. on the other, are trying to carry out a role as arbitrators and guarantors of the law and of democracy in certain conflicts under way in Europe. In particular, toward former Yugoslavia and Upper Karabach. With the results we know, in this case too.

1.9.1. The European Community's attempts

We will not linger on the European Community's capacity as a supranational organization of influencing the situation in the former Yugoslavia. This capacity has been huge, but by defect: the E.C.'s repeated lack of a clear and immediate intervention has contributed in a decisive way to the victory on the field, to the military and therefore also political victory of the racist and fascist project pursued with perseverance by the regime of Belgrade. Further on, in the part in which we will analyze "the limits of the European Community", we will try to pin-point the causes of this situation. For the moment, we will simply underline the absolute prevalence of the national chanceries on the E.C. institutions in the definition of the E.C.'s attitude toward the former Yugoslavia. In other words, there has never been an E.C. policy vis-à-vis Yugoslavia, but a sequel of positions which tried to mediate between opposed positions, engendering completely inapplicable compromises. To this, we need to add that some membe

rs of the E.C. (France and Great Britain), this position of stalemate was more than convenient, and could therefore represent a real political choice, for two reasons: because on the one hand it constituted an "authorization" for the Serbian policy and on the other because it could be linked not a decision of these countries, but to a decision of the E.C. itself.

Lastly, and always with respect to the former Yugoslavia, there arises another question. Can a supranational institution, the E.C., present itself as the arbitrator and the guarantor in a given situation when it is, through a member State (Greece) directly involved in the conflict, as in the case of the recognition of Macedonia?

If, in interpreting the case of Macedonia, it appears clear that the E.C. could not carry out a role of arbitration, more generally we can wonder whether a supranational institution can effectively offer, outside of the traditional military agreements of mutual assistance, guarantee as regards the respect of the law and of the rights in other territories.

1.9.2. The attempts of the CSCE, of the U.N.,...

As far as these organizations are concerned, obviously there isn't the problem of the extraneity of the state concerned with respect to the supranational institution, as all European countries, in the case of the CSCE, all (or almost) the countries of the world in the case of the U.N., are members of it.

Not for this reason, these institutions are in the conditions of carrying out role of arbitrate or guarantee better than the E.C. can. In fact, even more than the E.C., these institutions are totally void of federal characteristics and, in practice, function according to the old principles of diplomacy. The CSCE, which until very recently took its decisions unanimously, confronted with the war in the former Yugoslavia, now takes them by unanimity less one ! Furthermore, it is not endowed with its own executive staff. The U.N. is in the hands of a directorate: the permanent members of the Security Council. The Council of Europe is also organized according to the same scheme, with the exception of the European Court of the Rights of Man, whose sentences have the effect of a law in the member States, through alterations of the national regulations.

Moreover, such institutions lack democratic characteristics, as they are entirely intergovernmental structures - with the partial exception of the parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe.

Because the question of the minorities is often a very delicate one for the (central) states, it appears difficult for them to be effectively dealt with inside supranational institutions in which neither the oppositions, nor the minorities are represented. We could therefore wonder whether a reform in a democratic sense of these institutions is imaginable and in what shape. In other words, are parliaments of the U.N., of the CSCE, conceivable ? Parliaments other than pure and simple consultive organs ? In other words, parliaments capable of making decisions, then applied by organs with executive powers ? Parliaments capable, for example, of deciding whether to send an army in areas where the rights of "ethnic communities" are stifled ? Parliaments with permanent committees of control and arbitration on the question of the "minorities" or "ethnic communities" ?