Özet:

The questions of what the components of European identity formation are and how inclusive those components will be in the process of new identity construction are among the most discussed issues concerning European Union (EU) nowadays. The new conjuncture, which emerged with the end of the bipolar world order owing to the end of the Cold War, became the factor that ignited the issue of ethnic, religious, lingual and national minority issues in world politics. It also caused the concept of minority and the issue of minority rights to be discussed entirely in EU level. There is a need to address this issue, because in recent years the use of identity as a political argument has been mostly seen in the discussions of multiculturalism, and especially in the EU countries these discussions are made on immigrants and particularly on Muslims. In this context, in this study the historical development of minority rights will be discussed, and the studies made about minority rights in EU countries will be examined. How the phenomenon of minority rights is handled in the EU Acquis, how the freedom of individuals is determined and what the EU's contributions to these rights are the issues this study is going to investigate.

Anahtar Kelimeler: