“Romania has not raised any objections to Hungarian parties contacting voters in Transylvania during the course of next year’s general election campaign”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in an interview for the Hungarian language program of Romanian public television (TVR), which aired on Monday afternoon.
In the interview, which was recorded last week, Mr. Szijjártó said Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Meleșcanu had approached the issue rationally during the course of their negotiations in Bucharest. “To what extent you are successful in reaching out to the members of the Hungarian community living in Romania during the course of the Hungarian election campaign, and how they decide to vote, is your business, he said”, Mr. Szijjártó said in the interview, adding “I very much hope that this rational approach continues”.
“Romania also recognises and applies the concept of dual nationality with relation to Romanians living abroad”, he continued, explaining that this was why Romania had never voiced “any serious criticism” with regard to preferential naturalisation. “It is natural that those who are running for election will be contacting people who have the right to vote. I very much hope that political forces in Hungary will be wise enough not to apply methods that could make Hungarian communities abroad targets for the given country’s extremist or nationalist political forces. We will be acting in a way that avoids this, particularly in view of the fact that 2018 is an especially important year to Romanians for historical reasons”, the Minister said referring to the 100th anniversary of the unification of Transylvania and Romania.
In reply to a question from the interviewer, Mr. Szijjártó said that as a result of his personal decision, last year Hungarian diplomats did not take part in events organised by Romanian embassies to mark 1 December (the day on which Romania declared the union of Transylvania and Romania at Gyulafehérvár, now Alba Iulia; Romania’s Great Union Day national holiday), and that he sees no reason why this decision should be altered for the moment. He added, however, that the Hungarian Government always takes into account the standpoint of cross-border Hungarian communities in such matters, and the motivations behind last year’s decision correspond to the highly controversial statements made with relation to 1 December by Hunor Kelemen, President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ).
The Hungarian Foreign Minister said he was cautiously optimistic with relation to the chances of success of the Minority SafePack European citizens’ initiative. “The issue of indigenous minorities and national minorities not only counts as a sensitive issue within the Carpathian basin, but also in the Western part of Europe”, he said. “We cannot expect much support from several large Western European countries on this issue. One only has to look at which Western European countries have not yet acknowledged the independence of Kosovo”, the Minister explained, adding, however, that despite this all efforts must be taken to ensure the success of the initiative.
In his interview for RTV, Mr. Szijjártó repeated his previous statements with relation to the fact that trust must be built between the two countries during the course of Hungarian-Romanian relations, and further success stories must be created.
According to the Minister, if the parties continue on this course then there will be less affinity for nationalist voices in Romania and the as yet unsolved issues of the Hungarian community in Transylvania can be successfully resolved one step at a time.
Mr. Szijjártó visited Bucharest on 30 August at the invitation of Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Meleșcanu, where he gave a speech at the annual meeting of Romanian ambassadors.