Are National Minorities in the EU Progressing towards the Acquisition of Universal Rights?

This paper aims to acquire insights into processes and mechanisms behind the development of policies on universal citizenship rights at higher political scales. It considers politics on national minority rights at different scales in the context of thoughts on postnationalisation and denationalisation of citizenship, which are mainly based on globalisation theories, and in the context of thoughts on shifts in the scales of state activity from a regulation theoretical perspective. The development of common rules on the rights of minorities at the global and European scales is examined and confronted with policies of the individual states. From a systematic analysis of all national minorities in the European Union it appears that common rules at higher scales still allow for considerable diversity. The differences can be attributed to different characteristics of the minorities themselves as well as of the states concerned. Both reflect the vital legacy of strongly different historical paths of nation-state formation in different parts of Europe. The outcomes are better fitting in a regulation theoretical perspective than in a globalisation theoretical perspective on the development of common rules on minority rights in Europe.