national minorities in Europe
Determining the exact number of national and ethnic minorities in some European countries is difficult, as many countries do not collect ethnic data on their own population for political, historical or other reasons. Differences in the definition of autochthonous national, ethnic and linguistic minorities, nationalities and ethnic groups, and differences in census methodology also make it difficult to see clearly (concept of minority). There can be differences, by orders of magnitude, between the estimates of individual minority communities for their own numbers and the relevant state statistics. Some countries do not even recognise the existence of minorities living on their territory.
The Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) defines a community that has become a minority in its own homeland as a result of the transformation of Europe and the redrawing of borders as an ‘autochthonous national minority, a linguistic group’. A community that does not have its own state or motherland can also be regarded as an autochthonous national, linguistic minority. The organisation estimates that more than 100 million Europeans belong to one of the more than 400 minority communities. 40 million citizens in the European Union belong to an autochthonous national minority or language group. There are 60 languages spoken in the European Union, 24 of which are official languages of the EU. Christoph Pan estimates that 102 million of the 768 million people in Europe, including Turkey and the European part of Russia, belong to a minority group (National Minorities in Europe Handbook, 2011).
Most ethnic or national communities live in Russia (45), Ukraine (23) and Romania (19). Most countries have Roma (28), German (22) and Hungarian (8) ethnic groups. The largest minority community is the Russian minority in Ukraine (11 million), whereas it is ethnic Albanians who live outside the borders of their home country in the largest proportion. In Central Europe the Hungarian and Roma populations in Romania are the largest national and ethnic minorities, respectively. (See also: Hungarians in the neighbouring countries 1910–2011.)