Report On National Minority Rights Expands Hungarian Diplomacy’s Room For Manoeuvre

(MTI) – The report by Hungarian lawmaker Ferenc Kalmar on the situation and rights of traditional national minorities in Europe, which was the basis for a resolution recently adopted by the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Parliamentary Assembly, gives Hungarian diplomacy greater room for manoeuvre in the area of protecting minority rights, a government official said on Thursday.

Zsolt Nemeth, foreign ministry state secretary, told a news conference that the CoE had called upon all member states of the organisation to put territorial autonomy solutions into practice. The resolution and recommendations expressly refers to the importance of collective minority rights, and also of key importance for Hungarian diplomacy is the expectation formulated on guaranteeing official minority language use, establishing a special educational institutional system and ensuring the freedom of minority media, he said.

After the CoE adopted the report on April 8, Hungary’s ministries of foreign affairs and justice welcomed the organisation’s “firm statement in support of the rights of European national minorities.”

The report is all the more relevant given the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia, clearly stating as it does that endeavours towards violent secession weaken stability, Nemeth said today. Both the CoE report and Hungarian diplomacy strive towards strengthening stability through decentralisation and autonomy solutions, he added.