PM’s Commissioner: Minority protection not domestic but European issue

The issue of national minorities is not a domestic issue but a European one, Katalin Szili, the prime minister’s commissioner in charge of minority protection and autonomy, said in Budapest on Saturday.

The European Union is prepared to address the issues of all kinds of minorities except that of the 50 million people belonging to national minorities making up 10 percent of the bloc’s population, Szili said in her address to the general assembly of the Western European Association of Hungarian Country Organizations (NYEOMSZSZ).

Szili cited as an example a resolution adopted by the European Parliament in 2019 on the fundamental rights of the people of African descent which included the recognition of their right to work and housing, adding that the EP had never passed a similar resolution on national minorities.

Hungary therefore represents its proposals in connection with this matter through the Council of Europe (CoE), Szili said. Hungary has organised a number of conferences on minority protection during its six-month CoE presidency, which had led to the drafting of the so-called Strasbourg Declaration stating that the issue of national minorities is not a domestic issue but a European one and that national identity and citizenship are distinct concepts, she added.