The issues of national minorities are related to multiethnic and multicultural social phenomena in contemporary society. The issues of minority rights and their protection concerns the countries of the European Union and focuses on its ethnic heterogeneity and legal diversity. The Republic of Croatia is considered to be one of the most multicultural eastern European transition economies and in the formal legal protection of its minorities it meets all the standards established by the international legal instruments. European (international) minority law is a kind of soft law because there is no effective force behind it. It does not have specific standards for the protection of national minorities that Member States ought to accept. Each member country has a specific model of minority protection which is still their sovereign right. However, legal protection is largely the result of international obligations, and also of the direct pressure of the international community. With the emergence of new ethnic minorities that are being shaped today by immigrant populations, new forms of discrimination are opening up. This leads to the conclusion that minority rights should be sought to equalize because history shows that the hierarchy of rights can lead to the dissatisfaction and unwanted consequences.