{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02107355864811133, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004771371769383698, 'mean_word_length': 5.4512820512820515, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Political Participation of Minorities in Central European Countries: The Legal Framework

The project "Practice of Minority Protection in Central Europe" deals with six Central European countries: Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. It is implemented by the Competence Center South East Europe at the University of Graz in cooperation with partners in all the countries concerned. The project started in January 2008 and is going to be concluded in December 2010. It is co-funded by the Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich and the participating institutions. As its name indicates, the focus of the project is on the practice of minority protection. The aim is to identify best practices of minority protection in different fields. It will be studied under which conditions certain practices bring positive results and under which circumstances the application of particular measures is not recommendable. This goal will be reached by comparing the practical situation of autochthonous minorities in certain key areas, taking into consideration their respective social, cultural, historical, political and economic contexts. The range of selected countries is very interesting for this comparative exercise as it combines states with a communist past with states that have no such experience; old EU member states with new member states; states with a considerable minority population with states with a rather small minority population. A common feature is that they all have "co-ethnics" living abroad, and on many occasions these live in a neighboring country which is also under consideration in this project. Further, they all have a Roma population, which will also be dealt with in this project. There are, therefore, many features that lend themselves to comparison. The research is designed around two phases: initially, the legal-theoretical framework is studied, while the second phase focuses on the practical implementation and its impact. The legal analysis, concluded in 2008, focused country by country on certain fields that provide the key areas for the subsequent empirical analysis, namely: culture, media, education, use of language, economic participation, and political participation. The cross-area legal country studies are complemented by a comparative legal analysis which highlights the commonalities and differences in the development of methods of dealing with minority issues. Scientific examination of the protection of autochthonous minorities often ends with