House Speaker: Support for ethnic Hungarians benefits whole Carpathian Basin

Support the Hungarian government provides ethnic Hungarian communities outside of the country’s borders benefits the entire Carpathian Basin, House Speaker László Kövér said in an interview published on business website azuzlet.hu on Saturday.

To preserve ethnic Hungarian communities outside of Hungary, those communities need to be livable for young people, which requires support for workplaces, kindergartens, an environment of professional support and social opportunities, Kover said.

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“We’re not only serving Hungarian interests in this way, we’re acting in the interest of the common development of the Carpathian Basin,” he said.

He noted that funding from the government’s Carpathian Basin Economic Development Programme had supported more than 50,000 development projects worth some 200 billion forints (EUR 593m) in recent years.

Hungary has done much to create a common economic area in the region, he added.

He said an increasing number of Hungarian professionals, from Hungary and from minority communities, are returning home to start businesses, capitalising on experience gained abroad.

Kövér said the ethnic Hungarian community in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region continues to struggle to keep its rights and reiterated that Hungary would block Ukrainian initiatives in international forums, such as the country’s effort to join NATO, until that issue is resolved.

Source: MTI