Prime Minister’s Envoy Speaks Up for Rights of Hungarian Communities

“It is up to us to build the unity of Hungarian communities abroad as a process that spans generations,” Katalin Szili, the Prime Minister’s Envoy for Autonomy wrote in a statement on Sunday.

In matters of national policy and the protection of national minorities, there is no standing still, Katalin Szili warned.

You only have to look at the latest census results in neighboring countries to see how many of your compatriots have become invisible in the data of the national statistical offices. The passage of time is immediately noticeable,

she pointed out,” referring to the latest census in Romania.

This is precisely why I am convinced that cooperation and support for each other is the only viable way to make the most of our existing rights and to move forward, so that Hungarian communities abroad can create a new legal and administrative framework in their own homeland, according to their own will,” she explained.

In her statement, Szili noted that Miklós Duray – Hungarian politician, writer, university professor from Slovakia, and member of the Friends of Hungary Foundation – who recently passed away, was a central figure of the Komárom Grand Assembly.

In a tribute to Duray, Szili quoted the late politician, stressing the importance of Hungarians in Slovakia demanding for themselves the so-called community status, so that they can define themselves as a national community, not as a minority. “Hungarians have the right to self-determination and to self-identification within the framework of the state, which is also an implementation of the principle of subsidiarity.”

Featured photo via MTI/Komka Péter