Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians beyond borders receive money from Hungarian government
Some 227,159 ethnic Hungarian children and youth beyond the borders are receiving support this year through the government scheme dubbed Szülőföldön magyarul, an official of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Friday.
Árpád János Potápi, the state secretary of policies for Hungarian communities abroad, said in a statement that the scheme played an important role in enabling Hungarian children and youth beyond the borders to study in their mother tongue in their place of birth.
The government has been offering this type of support since the 2002/2003 academic year. All ethnic Hungarians studying in their mother tongue in their place of birth are eligible to apply for gross 100,000 forints (EUR 250) education-upbringing support and 100,000 forints student support, he added.
This year 237,296 applications were submitted and 227,159 were approved, he said. The transfer of support will start next week and continue in the upcoming weeks, he added.
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Can anyone explain what is the ultimate goal for these kind of assistances? I mean, i can not imagine for example the Mexican government giving money to mexicans born in the USA. I mean, seriously, what is the government trying to get back?
Their votes. Unlike Hungarians that live in the west who tend to vote for the Hungarian opposition, the ethnic Hungarian population on the territory of historical Hungary vote overwhelmingly for Fidesz. In total they number about 1.8 million and are a bedrock of support for the government.
Come on Jose. Fidesz has pulled off a fantastic vote buying scheme. Of course all of those ethnic Hungarians getting free money from the Hungarian government are going to vote for Fidesz. From what I saw Fidesz gets 90% plus of the votes from ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries. Now Fidesz wants to create more seats in parliament to represent Hungarians in the Carpathian basin. What other country has seats in parliament for geographic areas that are not inside its’ own territory? The deciding balance of political control of Hungary has effectively been handed over to Romanians, Serbs, Slovakians, etc who don’t live in Hungary and don’t pay taxes to the Hungarian state who are bought by Fidesz.
One correction, Larry, it’s not correct to call them Romanians, Serbs, et al. These are ethnic Hungarians were born on the territory of neighbouring countries and will almost certain be citizens of that country too, having at least a working knowledge of the local language, or even speaking it to a native standard having attended bi-lingual schools and gone on to acquire work in the local economy. They are, at the end of the day, Hungarians, by parentage, language, culture and these days by nationality too. I think nobody seeks to deny this fact and we shouldn’t view them in a different light to Hungarians living on the territory of modern-day Hungary, but, it’s an unavoidable fact that they live in a different sovereign state, their life is impacted mainly by the performance of the government in that country and they don’t pay tax in Hungary. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to vote in Hungarian elections, but they don’t generally live in Hungary day-to-day and don’t get to experience daily life in Hungary, unless they leave their ancestral territories.
It’s not wholly dissimilar to giving British nationality to South African, Canadian and Australian citizens because their forebears going back generations were British, then allowing them to vote in UK elections. Most will have never visited the UK and wouldn’t have a clue what the stakes are and who they’re voting for.