Border crossing, Minority SafePack in focus of Hungarian lawmakers’ forum

Coronavirus-related difficulties in maintaining links with ethnic kin and the Minority SafePack European citizens’ initiative featured high on the agenda of a working group of the Forum of Hungarian Lawmakers from the Carpathian Basin (KMKF) in Budapest on Tuesday.

Tibor Lakatos, a senior official of the operative board handling the pandemic, said that enabling ethnic Hungarians living not farther than 30 kilometres from the border to maintain links with Hungary had been a priority over the past year, and a matter of negotiations with the authorities of neighbouring countries.

The Hungarian authorities allowed ethnic Hungarians to enter the country without special request or registration, after a health check, the general said.

He added, however, that

limiting border traffic is an important tool in fighting the epidemic.

European lawmaker Lóránt Vincze, chairman of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), noted that on January 15 the European Commission had rejected launching legislation concerning the nine-point Minority SafePack. In response, the initiators asked the Court of Justice of the European Union to declare the EC decision null and void.

Vincze said

the EC decision triggered a “large wave of support” for the initiative from western Europe and Hungarian communities abroad.

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Source: MTI