Orban On Autonomy, Forex Borrowers, New Government

(MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended the right of Hungarians in Transcarpathia to autonomy in an interview to public television M1 late on Friday.

Orban said in connection with the crisis in Ukraine that energy supplies were stable in Hungary.

Reasserting his recently criticised remarks about autonomy for Transcarpathian Hungarians, Orban told M1’s “Este” programme that Hungary was interested in a stable and democratic Ukraine, but it cannot be either, if it fails to grant the local minorities, ethnic communities, among them Hungarians, what they are entitled to. That is “dual citizenship, collective or community rights and autonomy”, he said.

After his re-election last Saturday, Orban told lawmakers in Hungarian parliament that ethnic Hungarians were entitled to dual citizenship, community rights and autonomy. “These are topical issues in light of the situation in neighbouring Ukraine where 200,000 ethnic Hungarians live,” he told lawmakers.

Orban said there were several legal solutions to granting autonomy in Europe, and “Hungarians in Transcarpathia can choose that in the wide and colourful world of autonomy which concrete legal institution they prefer,” he said.

Whatever they choose, they and Ukrainian authorities must know that the Hungarian state is behind their autonomy demands with its full weight, Orban insisted. He added that this was a good time to specify needs as the new Ukraine is just setting up.

However, Orban said that in the matter of Russia’s actions “violating Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty” Hungary must support Ukraine.

As regards energy issues, Orban said he hoped the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on gas supplies would be scarce, but “there are preparations also for bad scenarios”. Hungary is able to supply energy for its residents and businesses in the “long term” and the government has taken the necessary steps to ensure this, Orban said. He added that he had recently signed agreements with Alexei Miller, the chairman of Gazprom, to secure safe energy supplies for Hungarians.

On a different subject, Orban said the Hungarian government was expected to make a decision in connection with solutions for troubled forex borrowers in the autumn. He added that a final solution would be sought but first Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, must make its relevant decisions, after which the government would act at great speed to ensure that all borrowers are protected.