Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he was pleased to learn that the ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party was a coalition partner in the new Romanian government.Continue reading
The Hungarian government will continue to support sports infrastructure projects in Transylvania, including Szekler Land, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Thursday after talks with Károly Eduárd Novák, Romania’s minister of sports.
“Sports is a tool to preserve and consolidate national identity and pride,” Szijjártó told a joint press conference in Budapest.
So far the government has provided 30 billion forints (EUR 83m) of support for sports projects in the region inhabited by many ethnic Hungarians, including the construction of a soccer stadium for Sepsi OSK in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfantu Gheorghe) and an ice hockey rink in Marosszentgyörgy (Sangeorgiu de Mures), he noted.
Similar large-scale plans are in place this year to support the construction of Partium Soccer Academy in Szatmarnemeti (Satu Mare) and a boarding school for the Szekler Land’s Ice Hockey Academy in Csíkkarcfalva (Carta), Szijjártó said.
Stressing the need for reforms in Romanian sports, Novák said he hoped that Hungary would promote the process by sharing its best practices.
Featured photo by Attila Kovács/MTI