Sources of Diffuse Support by the European Parliament for Ethnic Minorities

The paper addresses the question of why of the European Union (EU) and in particular the European Parliament (EP) address some human rights violations more than the others. The EU is argued to be a normative power, which means that its foreign policy is driven predominantly by normative considerations with human rights protection being one of the important aims of its foreign policy. However, the EP in general, its individual members and its foreign affairs committee (AFET) and the subcommittee for human rights (DROI) address some human rights violations more, than the others. In particular this is true for different ethnic minorities. The EP support for individual ethnic minorities is measured by the number of resolutions, granting and nomination for the Sakharov Prize, activities of the AFET and DROI, activities of the respective EP delegations, existence of an intergroup and invitations of the minorities’ leaders to address the EP. In the present study I compare the frequency and intensity at which human rights violations in China were addressed by the EP between 1999 and 2014. In particular I analyse how the EP treated human rights violations of two ethnic minorities – the Uighurs and the Tibetans. The two groups offer perfect cases for a most similar case study research design, as they both have territorial autonomy, are comparable in size, both have significant diaspora outside of China and are expose to a significant pressure domestically. However, they are treated very differently by the EP: while it granted significant attention and support to the Tibetans, Uighurs remained neglected for a significant period of time with the first resolution addressing their rights appearing as late as 2010. In order to explain this puzzle I test two hypothesis. The first one is the intensity of the respective conflict. My hypothesis is that the EP grants more attention to the more intense conflict with more casualties and more severe human rights violations. However, the intensity of the two conflicts as measured by the Heidelberg barometer does not correlate with the intensity of support. My second hypothesis is that the group with stronger advocacy capacities receives more support. This hypothesis is validated. Tibetans have had much better lobby structures for much longer than the Uighurs. They have earlier institutionalized their movement establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (de facto government in exile), have well-organized network of supporters (the so-called “TSGs” or Tibet Support Groups) in Europe and have early established the position of EU advocacy officer with a seat in Brussels. Last but not least, with the Dalai Lama’s personal popularity and charisma they had a very strong ambassador for their cause. Uighurs, on the opposite, established an overarching representative organization – the World Uighurs Congress – only in 2006. The importance of lobby in driving MEPs’ attention to particular human rights’ violations poses the question to which extent the EU lives up to its claim of being a normative power, if the drivers for its decision making are not normative after all.