Anna Adorjáni: The Concept of the Nation in the Hungarian Press in Transylvania in the Period of the Reforms

The editor of Erdélyi Híradó, presenting a panorama of French newspapers' reports about the reburial of Napoleon, cannot hide his concern over those not being correct and trustworthy, expressing his anger thus: "And should we then write history from such sources!" Yet, this is what I attempt to do in my paper.

My topic is the identification of the concept of the nation, its components and ranges of meaning through the analysis of two newspapers in Hungarian from Transylvania, dating from the period of the 19^th century Reforms: the Múlt és Jelen (Past and Present) as well as its appendix, the Hon és Külföld (At Home and Abroad), and (as a basis of comparison) the oppositional Erdélyi Híradó (Transylvanian News), with the numbers belonging to volumes 1841, respectively 1847. Our view-point is the analysis of definitions, meanings and usages referring to concepts of the nation, originating from the belief that definition is an argument by itself, and using concepts in this respect is already an interpretation of reality, therefore also its construction.

Our sources confirmed us that programs of modernization and programs about the nation are closely related: the nation, the Hungarian nation can (and must) only be "refined, educated" and modern, while a competitive and modern society, "a community of us" is possible only in a national frame, it can only be the homogeneous nation - at least on the level of language, an idea shared by both liberals and conservatives.

Csaba Borboly: More Than an Opinion Survey - The European Parliamentary Elections, 25th of November 2007

The elections on the 25^th of November were, for sure, the most edifying political happenings in our 17 years old democracy: the nomination of László Tőkés, the fact of voting for a national list, the rather abstract level of the elections' stake , the direct involvement of the Fidesz/the Hungarian Civic Union, the Romanian political participants, the Romanian press, and finally the intense Hungarian attention all will be memorized in political consciousness as a unique, non-repeatable string of events. The European Parliamentary elections taught me three (important) lessons:

- the fact that our most faithful voting basis is constituted by the rural Hungarian population has been emphasized again, they were the ones who did not leave the used path and supported the RMDSZ/DAHR throughout

- it was a painful experience that the urban population slightly turned away from the RMDSZ/DAHR

- the campaign groups recruited from the territorial youth councils created a positive impression, and where they were let to gain power and were considered as partners and not as enemies, the trust gave visible results.

In this study I use my earlier, partly published materials in order to present my report. My observations and statements are partly based on my personal experience, partly on the election results (appendix nr. 2) and finally on accounts of young RMDSZ/DAHR-politicians (appendix nr. 1).

Attila M. Demeter - Márton Tonk: Strategies and Norms of European-Level Minority Protection

It is a well known fact that the European Union does not have a minority protection system of norms or a law-system of its own. It is true that minority questions were included in the common foreign and security policy of the Union, as well as that in 1993, on the occasion of the Copenhagen meeting of the European Council, minority protection was made a condition of joining the Union, since one of the Copenhagen criteria is that the candidate country "respects and protects minorities". Copenhagen criteria are part of the Union's Access Strategy, as well as became aspects of the Commission's internal analyses referring to the candidate countries, of the Access Partnership Agreement, as well as belong to the usual reports of the Council concerning the advancement of the candidate countries towards EU-membership. At the same time the Amsterdam Treaty, although it transformed every Copenhagen criteria into a part of the primary law, ignored the protection of minorities. The fact that the clause of minority protection received a separate treatment in Amsterdam seemingly shows that the Union wanted to avoid the internal regulation of the national minorities at the level of the Union.

Moreover, allusions to minority protection norms present in documents of the European Union institutions made for Central and Eastern European countries are rather vague. They name the steps the certain countries are supposed to take, but no mentioning of the norms and gauges which form the basis of the EU expectations. Thus the protection of minorities is an ill defined political requisite that the Central and Eastern European countries tried to fulfill - well or badly - only because they were lured by the possibility of access.

The main aim of our study thus is to examine, besides the rather general system of expectations of the European Union, what international and European laws are effective in minority protection. What are the codified forms of the minority rights, and what roles did play the different forms of autonomies existent in Europe in creating standards and norms of minority protection. Thus we do not want to focus only on Union expectations, nor on the minority protection system of certain countries, but we want to analyse the European minority protection system of norms apart from that of the Union.

Gábor Egry: Odds, Threats and Parties - a Changing Political Structure in Romania after the European Parliamentary Elections?

In my note I will try to shortly - and not with the rigueur of detailed scientific analysis - summarize that the processes of the changing political field - of which the election of the Romanian members of the European Parliament can be considered one station, even if one of significant consequences - offer what possibilities and chances, and what dangers they represent for the participants of the Romanian political life, including the Hungarian political forces. Finally, as a coda/excurse, I wish to refer to the new, European dimension of Romanian politics.

Zsolt Fórika: The Right to Property in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The Relevance of the Strasbourg Human Rights System to Property Restitution in Romania

The restitution of properties confiscated under the communist regime continues to be a highly sensitive and unresolved issue in Romania due to the constantly changing legislative framework and because of the huge backlog in the application of domestic legal provisions. The European Court of Human Rights has delivered a substantial number of cases related to property rehabilitation or restitution, receiving broad attention from the Romanian media as well as the academics. Little has been said, however, on how the European human rights mechanisms can provide redress for people alleging violation of their rights in relation to property restitution. The study seeks to fill this lacuna by giving a systematic analysis of the Court's jurisprudence in this field, and by offering practical guidance for those who wish to take a case to Strasbourg.

After briefly examining the conceptual framework of property rights, the author explores the Court's practice on Article 1 of the First Protocol. In order to ensure the better understanding of the Court's case-law on property rights, the paper reflects on the Convention provisions that are strongly related to them. The second part of the study sees the author first providing a critical assessment of the domestic legal framework, before moving on to analyse the Court's jurisprudence on Romanian property restitution.

Gergely-Ferenc Illyés: The Political Agenda of Hungarians in Romania

The aim of his study is the analysis of the political agenda of Hungarians in Romania, introduced by the presentation of theories and research results to be found in the referring international literature.

I performed the analysis by examining one slice of the agenda, namely the view and analysis of the media agenda, by processing materials from national dailies in Hungarian, with the method of content analysis.

Thus I researched the daily agenda of a period in campaign and one out of campaign, focusing, in the first case, on the building of agendas as well as the different media treatment of the contesting parts, while in the second case I concentrated on characteristics and effects of the agenda themes.

The generalities of my results are only partly valid, yet they may possibly serve as starting points and pillars to further researches in the field, aiming to reveal links between public opinion and the agenda of the media.

Árpád Márton: The Freedom to Choose, to Unite or to Blunder?

This writing is a comment upon the opening study of Zoltán Alpár Szász and Miklós Bakk. In the first part I will reflect upon some of the concrete or the supposed mistakes of the study, in the second part I will present my own view about the Romanian political parties and their changing support, while in the third I shall try to summarize my evaluation and conclusions referring to the Hungarian participants of the European Parliamentary elections.

Gianfranco Poggi: Theories of State Formation

This essay gives a summary and highly selective account of the most significant sociological perspectives on the early and intermediate phases of what one may call statualization - a set of processes taking place in Western Europe between the 12th and the 18th century, in the course of which the practice of rule, as concerned a diminishing number of generally larger and more clearly delimited territories, became to a growing extent:

- depersonalized. That is, rule is (in principle) vested in offices rather than in physical individuals as such;

- formalized. The practice of rule increasingly refers to norms which expressly authorize it, mandate it, and control it;

- integrated. Rule increasingly takes into account other aspects of the social process, recognizes their significance and makes some contribution to their persistence, while being at the same time

- differentiated from them. Rule, that is, addresses distinctive concerns and employs special resources (material and symbolic). Finally, it is

- organized. This expression suggests two related and at the same time contrasting phenomena: on the one hand, rule is exercised by and through a plurality of subjects (individual and collective), on the other these subjects constitute together a single unit, which overrides their plurality.

István Szabó: Indivisibiliter et Inseparabiliter? - Status/Statutory-Laws and Granting Citizenship in Europe

Political borders in Europe very often do not coincide with ethnic or cultural borders, so in many cases a remarkable portion of the state-forming nation is located outside the borders of the kin-state. The historical, political and social features of certain countries or nations may differ as well as the problems of minorities living on the national-cultural territory of a nation, but can be compared within a certain framework. The comparison is based on the legislative activities of kin-states concerning their kin-minorities, the kin-states' bargaining power in their neighbourhood policies, and the failure or success of such policies. What are the instruments of a successful kin-minority policy? What is the main motivating force behind the kin-states' increasing kin-minority-related legislative activity which very often contradicts good neighbourly relations? An attempt will be made to deal with these questions, which are, from a methodological point of view, quite hard to be answered. The research will be mainly based on the relevant legislative acts of kin-states, professional literature, committee reports, press-releases and interviews.

The case of Hungary will not be mentioned, since there is already a tremendous amount of studies and reports available regarding this particular issue, yet comprehensive, "European all-inclusive" evaluative works are much rare of a phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance for Hungary and its kin-Hungarians to place these phenomena properly in the international context, realizing that we are not the only ones on the continent struggling with such problems.

As a final conclusion, successful neighbourhood policies and effective protection of kin-minorities by their kin-states do not necessarily contradict each other. What's more, only the combination of these two instruments can lead to success in the long run, but there are also many other criteria which have to be met.

Zoltán Alpár Szász - Miklós Bakk: Elections to the European Parliament - a First in Romania

This paper analyses the first Romanian elections to the European Parliament. Its goals is to present a detailed account of the preliminaries, the political context and the results of these elections. Hence, the introductory part describes the electoral system governing the election of Romania's MEPs, and retraces the legislative process leading to the adoption of this system, while the main part offers a rather comprehensive analysis of the election results. The authors examined several aspects using mainly various methods of electoral geography and ecology. First, they dealt with election turnout in Romania studying this topic from a longitudinal and cross-national viewpoint, too. Second, they investigated the contenders' electoral fortunes establishing various correlations between the parties' vote and seat shares. Needless to say, examining these results implied longitudinal comparisons and the use of survey data as well in order to be able to grasp certain trends in the Romanian party system. In the final part of the paper, Szász and Bakk formulated alternative hypothetical scenarios regarding the future of the Romanian party system and of the Hungarian minority representation in various elected decision-making bodies.

Vincze László: The Relationship of Media Usage and Linguistic Identity in a Bilingual European Region

One of the most exemplary models of minority protection - from a European, but possibly from a global perspective - is functioning in South Tirol. The rights of the German-language minority and the functioning of the regional territorial autonomy frequently raise the attention of researchers and become topics of research.

The aim of this study is to try and find the possible links between the media usage habits of youth in South Tirol and their linguistic identity and attitudes relating to language.