Romanian and Hungarian foreign ministers get together for talks

Foreign ministers of Romania and Hungary agree their countries will overcome diplomatic tensions through dialogue and pragmatism.

Leyla Cheamil, 27.05.2020, 13:55

The Romanian and Hungarian foreign ministers, Bogdan
Aurescu and Péter Szijjártó,
respectively, met in Bucharest on Tuesday amid strained relations between their
countries recently. The tension was generated by the issue of the autonomy of
the so-called Székely Land, a region in the centre of Romania, in Transylvania,
comprising the counties of Covasna and Harghita and part of Mureș county and
which is inhabited mostly by Szeklers, a Hungarian ethnic group. According to a
census from 2011, ethnic Hungarians make up 6.5% of Romania’s population,
accounting for 1.2 million people and representing the country’s largest ethnic
minority.

In April this year, a bill
initiated by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarian in Romania by which Székely
Land could become an autonomous region with legal personality was passed
without debate by the Chamber of Deputies but was later rejected in the Senate
with a majority of votes. The Romanian president Klaus Iohannis reacted to the
bill saying the Social Democratic Party in opposition had an agreement with the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania to pass the bill without
debate.

The foreign ministers of
Romania and Hungary have now agreed their countries would try to overcome
tensions through dialogue and pragmatism and for Hungarian officials visiting Romania
in the coming period to refrain from statements that could contradict in any way
the strategic partnership with Bucharest. The Hungarian foreign minister
pointed out that his country had a verbal agreement from the former government
of Romania led by the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Liberals and
Democrats with respect to a Hungarian plan for economic development in Transylvania.

The Romanian foreign
minister noted that only a written agreement has legal value and that verbal
understandings made in the past with previous Romanian leaders are not valid. He
emphasised that the Hungarian programme does not have the agreement of the current
Romanian government. Bogdan Aurescu:

I proposed holding talks
about signing an agreement on this programme that would seek to ensure
transparent and non-discriminatory management, not based on ethnic criteria and
not infringing on European and Romanian legislation with respect to market
competition.

The Romanian foreign
minister also said that as far the Treaty of Trianon is concerned, while Romania
and Hungary are each entitled to their own historical interpretations thereof, they
must look to the future. Concluded on 4th June 1920 by the Allied
Powers, who had won the First World War, including Romania, and by Hungary, as
successor state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Trianon Peace Treaty provided
international recognition of Romania’s borders following unification with Transylvania
and of the civil and political rights of the majority ethnic Romanian
population of Transylvania, rights which ethnic Romanians had been denied when
this region was under Austro-Hungarian rule. (CM)