Slovak-Hungarian relations
By Linda on Thursday, December 6 2007, 09:14 - News from Hungary - Permalink
Slovak-Hungarian FMs disagree on minority issues
December 5, 2007
Slovak Foreign Minister Jan Kubis and Hungarian counterpart Kinga Goncz exchanged dissenting views regarding minority issues and relations between their countries.
Goncz told a Hungarian parliamentary foreign affairs committee on Tuesday that on short term, diplomatic relations with Slovakia should concentrate on conflict management. She criticized Slovakia's use of ambiguous communication with Hungary and said the situation of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia had suffered of late. She added that the Slovak government had failed to see Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian SMK party as the advocate of minority rights for ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia, and instead treated it merely as an opposition force. Goncz said until these areas of conflict were resolved, "we have to question the idea of a meeting of the prime ministers of the two countries."
Talking to the press after a Slovak government session on Wednesday, Kubis rejected the claim that ethnic Hungarian minority rights were faltering and said that the problems regarding the Hungarian minority were small and should not affect bilateral relations. Kubis said Slovakia was still preparing for a meeting of Hungarian-Slovak premiers. He criticised SMK's leadership for failing to communicate in a manner that reflected their role of protecting minority rights for ethnic Hungarians.
The 2008 Slovak budget approved yesterday sets aside no funds for Hungarian-language broadcasts of Radio Pátria. The state-run Slovak Radio will cease all broadcasts, including those of Radio Pátria, on the medium wave band. Ethnic minority broadcasts will be aired only by satellite and on the internet from January, said Slovak Radio programming director Lubos Machaj.
Ildikó Nagy, director of Radio Pátria, said in Tuesday’s edition of the Bratislava-based Hungarian-language daily Új Szó that Hungarian-language broadcasts in Slovakia will come to an end after 80 years, if the decision is endorsed by the Radio Council.
Slovak gov't gives thumbs up to Hungarian border bridge construction
November 14, 2007
The Slovak government voted on Wednesday to authorize foreign minister Jan Kubis to join Hungarian FM Kinga Göncz in Sturovo (Párkány), Slovakia, on Friday and add his signature to an interstate agreement calling for reconstruction of two bridges spanning the Ipoly river that marks the border between the two countries. The two bridges on the Ipoly will connect the Hungarian Pösténypuszta with the Slovak Pető and the Hungarian Ráróspuszta with the Slovak Rárós. The constructions will be co-financed with EU funds by the two countries.
The brief meeting between the two FMs and the accord are the first substantive event in ties between the two countries since the Bratislava parliament recently reaffirmed the post-WWII Benes Decrees, which deprived ethnic Hungarians of their property under the principle of collective guilt, sources in the Slovak capital have noted.
Slovak reiteration of collective guilt unacceptable, says Hungarian government
September 21, 2007
The Hungarian government rejects the principle of collective guilt and believes the vote by Slovakia's parliament that reconfirmed the post-WWII Benes Decrees passed to punish German and Hungarian nationals living in Czechoslovakia at the time, runs counter to European Union principles, the government spokesman said on Thursday.
Speaking for the prime minister, David Daroczi said Hungary would prefer conciliation to the incitement of tension and cannot support measures to the contrary. Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany called the portions of the Benes Decrees directed against residents unjust. The decrees deprived many Hungarians of their homes and property, holding them responsible for the war, and they have never received compensation.
Speaking for the senior government coalition partner MSZP, Jozsef Kozma, who is responsible for foreign affairs, said the offensive action on the part of the Slovak legislature came after Hungary's parliament had made a special attempt to evolve good-neighbour relations on the basis of European norms. He too voiced shock that it came just after Hungary's political parties had issued a joint appeal for cooperation. "This type of historical anachronism has no place in a free, democratic, and tolerant Europe," said Kozma.
"While the heads of government agreed to build bridges and the majority of residents in both countries want forward-pointing relations, the idea of looking backwards appears to be gaining the upper hand, and that will not help to heal historical wounds," said Gyurcsany. He called for confidence-building measures and mutually advantageous cooperation rather than re-confirming past punishments.
On behalf of the biggest opposition party Fidesz Zsolt Nemeth said they had been shocked to learn that Slovakia's parliament had passed a resolution on the inviolability of the Benes Decrees. Nemeth called the move unfriendly, particularly coming after a meeting of ethnic Hungarian MPs from throughout the Carpathian Basin, at which MPs from all five parties in Hungary's parliament signed a statement on the need for Slovakia and Hungary to reconcile their differences. Nemeth said the move proved that Slovakia's parliament had adopted the extremist nationalism and chauvinism of the Slovak National Party, a member of the government coalition. He called on the parties making up Slovakia's parliament to return to the European principles of human rights.
Another protest was issued in the European Parliament, where MEPs from Hungary, Slovakia, and Germany protested the move.
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Comments
Re-opening the Benes decrees is nothing else than a step to destabilize the property rights in Slovakia, Czechia, and maybe Central Europe in general, and a step to return us closer to a revival of the second world war. I am surely no fan of the Slovak National Party but whether they're behind it or not, the resolution is a sane one. After the war, Germans and Hungarians were indeed treated as both the originators of the war as well as the members of the nations that lost the war. It would have surely been better if culprits could have been punished individually but their huge number has simply made such a precision solution impossible. If there is a consensus that some/all displaced Hungarians or Germans should be compensated, they should be clearly compensated by the Hungarian or German governments. Expecting anything else means to return the bloody past to the present. There are way too many other bad things that Hungarians and Germans did to Slovaks and Czechs. I assure you that accepting the current state of affairs including the facts about the history and including the validity of the laws behind the status quote - including the Benes decrees - is the most peaceful approach that Europe can make.
Dear Lubos,
I believe - and I am sure you do too - that as Europeans we are entitled to settle our disputes in a peaceful way. I agree with you on that the bringing up of the Benes-Decrees was not a wise step either from Bratislava or from Budapest. It is far more than clear that this issue was used to build political popularity on it on both sides. Therefore, the best would be, as I think you just suggested, to settle this problem for good and continue living next to each other as good neighbours.
On a more substantive point, however, I am afraid I cannot share your views. Some points of the Benes-Decrees were indeed very harmful for the Slovak-Hungarian and Slovak-German relations. Some points of the Benes-decrees do indeed raise the problem of collective guilt which is indeed unacceptable (at least hopefully) for most of the Europeans in the 21st century. For these reasons I do not think that the Slovak parliament adopted a good solution to find the way out. What they did was to freeze the current status quo in the bilateral relations already charged with some tensions if not degrading them even more. Honestly I do not think that this is a "sane" thing to do.
"Germans and Hungarians were indeed treated as both the originators of the war as well as the members of the nations that lost the war. It would have surely been better if culprits could have been punished individually but their huge number has simply made such a precision solution impossible."
I hope we can agree on the point that WWII was the most terrible chapter in the history of Europe in the 20th century. Whether it is wise to say that Germans (and Hungarians) were treated as originators of the war (do you mean every single German and Hungarian?) and therefore it was okay to confiscate their property is somewhat troubling for me. Would it be the same to say that because the PKK caused many Turks suffer, it is perfectly justified to say that all Kurd property should be confiscated in Turkey? I do not see it like that. It would just drive us back to the good old notions of collective guilt, wouldn't it?
"If there is a consensus that some/all displaced Hungarians or Germans should be compensated, they should be clearly compensated by the Hungarian or German governments. Expecting anything else means to return the bloody past to the present. There are way too many other bad things that Hungarians and Germans did to Slovaks and Czechs."
Compensation is not a viable solution. It would just create even more tensions on both sides. However, I do think that an official apology from Bratislava and Prague would do for most of the victims. To say that what happened in the past was inhuman and that it would never happen again. On the same note I would really expect the Hungarian side to do the same in connection with the Slovaks and Czechs suffered any damage in connection with any Hungarian action during WWII. There are way too many bad things the people in Central Europe did to each other and keep on doing them. Unfortunately this is true for all of the nations, I don't think that there are "good" and "bad" nations, as there are lot of good people in both of our countries and some bad who occasionally dress up as politicians and make us believe that others are worse then us. All in all, we just speak a different language.
I am still convinced that the Benes-Decrees should be talked about and should be withdrawn. Forgetting the bad things is the biggest trap of history in which peoples of this part of the globe just keep on falling. To debate those decrees would be a really good solution not to forget our dark past in order to make our futures brighter.
Best regards,
Lóránt