Reasons for EU double standards: comparative overview of the cases of the Erased and the Non-citizens

Abstract

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the case studies of the Slovenian Erased and the Latvian Non-citizens, the paper endeavors to identify the reasons for the EU involvement in the latter, but not the former case. These two situations are recognized as similar enough to be compared, and endure the counter-argumentation that the different EU approach is conditioned by the specifics of the local context, not by double standards. Hence, the paper comes to a conclusion that the involvement in Latvia has been conditioned by the fear of the potentially violent conflict, the existence of a proactive kin state, and a minority, significant in number, as well as the explicitly discriminatory legal framework that was in collision with the EU economic acquis. Thus, it has been inferred that double standards occur due to the lack of EU and international interest in these situations of human rights violations, where the powerful kin state and the minority, significant in number, are absent, do not have a potential to develop into a violent conflict, do not derive from explicitly discriminatory legal provision, and do not challenge the fundamental market freedoms of the EU.

Keywords:

• double standards
• Europeanization
• CEE enlargement
• Latvian Non-citizens
• the Erased
• Slovenia

Notes

1. Ali Berisha (for more, see Pignoni 2008) lived and worked in Slovenia since 1987. In 1993, he was erased and deported to Tirana. After his deportation back to Slovenia, he managed to escape to Germany and get refugee status. In 2005, Germany decided to deport him to Kosovo – his country of origin. On his way to Kosovo, Berisha and his family stayed in Slovenia and applied for asylum. The Slovenian government tried in any possible way to deport them back to Germany, despite the Constitutional Court decision forbidding deportations of the Erased. The deportation was twice prevented by the efforts of two members of the European Parliament from the Italian Communist Refoundation Party. However, in 2007, Berisha and his family were deported. In the meantime, in 2006, Berisha together with Kurić and others lodged an application against Slovenia before the European Court on Human Rights, and in 2012 won the case.