This book constitutes an in-depth study of the legal framework and political profile of EU legislation, practice, and policy on minority rights protection. After setting the conceptual background for minority rights, their historical and political significance in the EU is analyzed. The EU, as it was perceived by its founders, is an economic organization. It took on the new task of minority rights monitoring in the course of its recent enlargements. From the enlargement, a lack of clarity of the purposes, standards, and criteria of assessment of the performance of current and perspective Member States emerged. The book thus tackles questions on the present dominant trends on minority rights protection, their effects on Member States, and their future perspectives - through the prism of the recent enlargements to Central and Eastern Europe. It provides a balanced analysis of different possible theoretical approaches, together with pertinent empirical studies testing these approaches, as well as a discussion of the future challenges of minority rights within the EU. It makes a useful contribution to EU law, insofar as it links the complex legal framework of accession negotiations to the more political processes of conditionality.

More generally, it comprehensively covers a subject area that has not often been treated from the human rights perspective. The book is relevant for scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in human rights protection in the EU, as well as students engaged in comparative public law and transitional legal studies.