Historicity and citizenship as conditions for national minority rights in Central Europe: old principles in a new migration context

Having a historical presence in a country and citizenship of that country are two basic conditions under which national minority rights are granted in many countries, but increasing international migration has started to pose a challenge to this conception. Like other countries of Central Europe, the Czech Republic has adopted the two conditions for granting rights to traditional ‘national minorities’ and has developed a separate policy for the ‘integration of foreigners’; however, the emergence of the second generation of Vietnamese has presented a special challenge to this two-tier policy system. Recent renegotiation of the historicity of this immigrant group has resulted in its ‘official recognition’ as a national minority. This paper discusses this case in its wider Central European context, and addresses the question of whether we are observing an erosion of the two-tier policy system or a reconsideration of the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ minorities. Finally, the paper touches upon the question of the role and usability of ‘old’ minority language rights, considering the lack of interest among the traditional minorities vs. the linguistic situation of the migrants’ second generation.