Government preparing for this year’s census conducted in autumn

Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén met in Parliament on Friday representatives of the Slovak national minority municipalities and other organisations for a briefing on this year’s census.

“The Hungarian government supports national minorities [living in Hungary], which it regards as something of existential value,” Semjén said at the event. The 13 national minorities in Hungary are an integral part of their own nation as well as of Hungary, and form specific cultures that no one else can provide for them or preserve, he said.

Imre Ritter, the chairman of parliament’ national minority committee, said this year’s census was expected to provide clearer and more accurate data than in 2011, and that more people would declare themselves as belonging one national minority or another.

Read alsoHungarian international airport to close in October

State secretary participates at conference of ethnic Hungarian leaders

Hungary’s state secretary in charge of policies for Hungarian communities abroad stressed the importance of preserving results achieved with those polices in the past twelve years after participating at the Kufstein conference, a binannua meeting of ethnic Hungarian leaders.

Árpád János Potápi told MTI by phone on Saturday that the 16th Kufstein conference, taking place over the weekend in Oberpullendorf (Felsőpulya), Austria, was attended by Hunor Kelemen, president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania; István Pásztor, who heads the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians; Róbert Jankovics, the leader of the Democratic Union of Hungarians of Croatia; and Krisztián Forró, who chairs Slovakia’s Alliance. Teachers from Transcarpathia, Transylvania, Slovakia, Croatia and Serbia also participated, as did representatives of the Hungarian diaspora in Western Europe, he added.

The conference takes its name from the first place where it was held.