Central and Eastern European Ethnoregionalism before and after the EU Accession: A Realistic Chance or a Hopeless Struggle?

After the transition regional and ethnoregional movements demanding for territorial autonomy were formed or revived also in Central and Eastern Europe. The possible accession to EU propagating Europe of the Regions, the common principles such as subsidiarity and decentralization strengthened and partly developed their efforts. Despite the indirect EU-pressure on states towards regionalization, these movements have not been successful in the area so far, and since their efforts were inefficient, their goals remained unchanged up to this day. Even though some of these movements were transformed into ethnoregional parties (e.g. Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania, Moravians, Silesian Autonomy Movement), and became members of the European party European Free Alliance after the EU accession, they were not able to step forward in (personal or territorial) autonomy and regional issues. Their weakness is reflected also in regional elections, as they cannot become dominant political forces even in their own region. The aim of the presentation is to reveal and synthetize the reasons and processes of ethnoregionalisms’ serial failures in Central and Eastern Europe.