Hungary will not be party to anything that endangers the interests of Hungarians living in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja), the deputy prime minister said. Zsolt Semjén responded to a statement made by Pavlo Klimkin, the Ukrainian foreign minister, who said his country would soon levy a fine on dual citizens who cross the EU border.
Pavlo Klimkin said the measure would take effect as soon as the two countries introduce joint passport checks on their common border. “The Constitution of Ukraine clearly says that dual citizenship is not allowed in Ukraine. There is nothing more I can say about this. Everyone must respect the Ukrainian laws. Everyone who has two passports must understand that he or she will be found and applied appropriate sanctions,” the Ukrainian foreign minister told.
Hungarian opposition JOBBIK party said that Pavlo Klimkin’s remarks represented “hypocrisy at its peak” and called on the Ukraine government not to demand respect for regulations that even its own ministers fail to respect. Deputy group leader Márton Gyöngyösi said Klimkin’s remarks represented an open threat to ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia and called on Hungary’s foreign ministry to resolutely stand up for the legal protection of all Hungarian citizens. Green opposition LMP also called it unacceptable that the Ukrainian government threatens ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine holding dual citizenship.
According to the latest census, around 150000 Hungarians live in Transcarpathia, a region which had belonged to Hungary before the First World War, to Czechoslovakia in the interwar period and to the Soviet Union following the Second World War, and which has become part of the independent Ukraine in 1991. In recent years, tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine have been naturalised.
via hungarymatters.hu and mw.ua photo: wikimedia