The So-Called 2015 Migration Crisis and Euroscepticism in Border Regions:Facing Re-Bordering Trends in the Danish-German Borderlands

This paper examines the role of Euroscepticism on regional cross-border cooperation between Germany and Denmark. It demonstrates that Euroscepticism, while absent from local mainstream politicians, had already caused civic unrest in the 1997 attempts to construct a return to history Euro-region Schleswig. It resulted in a re-scaling of the Euro-Region to Region and Schleswig to “Sønderjylland/Schleswig”, omitting any reference to Europe, European identity or a commitment to a closer European union in the relevant agreements. Border controls, on the agenda in 2011 and again since 2015, have demonstrated the institutional weakness of cross-border politics when faced with determined initiatives from the national center. Furthermore, the Eurosceptic Danish People’s Party had its best results in the border precincts both at the latest European and Danish national elections. Euroscepticism, even though difficult to measure on a regional level, seems to have been an ever present underneath current despite a political rhetoric of successful cooperation and cross-border reconciliation. The Danish-German case’s development might be more distinct, but nonetheless representative for European border (and cross-border) regions. While European metropolises develop into thriving cosmopolitan post-nation state societies, this is not necessary the case at Europe’s borders, where categorization and bordering remain common social practices by the large majority of national borderlanders with only a small portion of transnational borderlanders or ‘regionauts’ getting involved in border crossing social practices on a larger scale.</p

The Dilemma of Responsibility:The Role of Kin-States and Nation-States in Implementing Non-Territorial Autonomy Models to Realise Minorities’ Linguistic, Cultural and Educational Rights

In this paper, I scrutinise a perceived best-practice example of national conflict resolution and minority accommodation (the Danish–German borderland of Schleswig) on the dilemma of responsibility to implement minorities’ linguistic, cultural and educational rights. The respective German minority in Denmark and the Danish minority in Germany operate high-quality educational systems and other cultural institutions in an informal non-territorial autonomy (NTA) settlement dating back to the division of the region in 1920. This system depends financially on kin-state support, especially for the Danish minority. A budget conflict in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein in 2010 demonstrated the viability of the minority settlement and issues about fairness and recognition when narratives of a privileged minority dominated political discourse. This raises issues regarding how NTA arrangements should be implemented, refocusing on the responsibility of kin-states and states of residence.In this paper, I scrutinise a perceived best-practice example of national conflict resolution and minority accommodation (the Danish–German borderland of Schleswig) on the dilemma of responsibility to implement minorities’ linguistic, cultural and educational rights. The respective German minority in Denmark and the Danish minority in Germany operate high-quality educational systems and other cultural institutions in an informal non-territorial autonomy (NTA) settlement dating back to the division of the region in 1920. This system depends financially on kin-state support, especially for the Danish minority. A budget conflict in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein in 2010 demonstrated the viability of the minority settlement and issues about fairness and recognition when narratives of a privileged minority dominated political discourse. This raises issues regarding how NTA arrangements should be implemented, refocusing on the responsibility of kin-states and states of residence