Indigenous ethnic minorities are an integral part of the Hungarian nation
Zsolt Semjén, the candidate for the post of Deputy Prime Minister, mentioned He will pursue the implementation of Hungary’s national policy programs, during a hearing before the parliament’s National Cohesion Committee on Wednesday.
Semjén said that the foundations of Hungary’s policy towards Hungarian communities abroad were laid in 2010, adding that “they have proven to be stable”. He stressed that the nation could only survive if all of its constituents survived. This, he said, required a motherland with a strong economy and strong diplomacy, as well as ethnic Hungarian communities able to retain their national identity.
Semjén highlighted the Hungarian Permanent Conference (MÁÉRT) and the Diaspora Council.
The candidate referred to the government’s dual citizenship scheme, aimed at building the ‘legal unity of the nation’ and said that more than 1.1 million ethnic Hungarians had obtained preferential Hungarian citizenship under this scheme .
Regarding the government’s economic aid to ethnic relatives, Semjén said that if ethnic Hungarians could not earn a living in their country of origin, these areas would become “empty from a Hungarian point of view”. The economic program aims to prevent such a trend, benefiting “the Hungarian economy, regions across the border and neighboring states”, he said. He added that it was “obvious” that the Hungarian government supported ethnic Hungarian parties, although the states they were in “may not like it”.
In another hearing, with the committee representing Hungarian ethnic minorities, Semjén said that indigenous ethnic minorities are an integral part of the Hungarian nation and part of the state. He said these communities contributed to “a special wealth” of the Hungarian nation, adding an “asset that cannot be compared to anything else”, and pledged the government’s continued support.
The committee unanimously supported Semjén’s nomination.
Photo courtesy of Zoltán Balogh/MTI
