Romanian rector: Ukraine must also cede territory to Hungary, Romania
Andrei Marga, former rector of the Babeş-Bolyai Univercity (BBTE), says Ukraine is surrounded by “unnatural borders” and the country should cede territory to Hungary and Romania, among others.
The statements of the 76-year-old Herder Prize-winning Romanian philosopher and political scientist have provoked a significant response. They were made on Friday, during a book fair and book launch in Alba Iulia (Gyulafehervár). The former politician served as education minister between 1997 and 2000 and as foreign minister for a few months in 2012, kronikaonline.ro reports.
“Unnatural borders”
He said on Friday that Ukraine was surrounded by “unnatural borders”. “It has to cede territory to Hungary (Transcarpathia), Poland (Galicia), Romania (Bukovina) and Russia (Donbas and Crimea). These are other countries’ territories,” Andrei Marga was quoted as saying by local portal Alba24.ro.
Marga argued that the conflict in Ukraine would not be resolved if the parties “stalled”. He added that there will be no peace in Europe until the United States, Russia, Germany, Ukraine and China reach some kind of agreement on the current conflict.
“Ukraine is very far from democracy”
“As there is no calm, democracy will suffer,” Marga said, adding that Romania has “nothing to do” with the war in Ukraine and that the country has sufficient energy resources to avoid an energy crisis. The former minister and rector also said Ukraine was “very far from democracy”, with parties banned, media controlled and many wealthy people leaving the country with lots of money.
Shady past
On Saturday, the Bucharest press took note of the statement by Marga, who previously also ran the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR), which most called “shocking” and “provocative”. Many recall that years ago, he was found by the Commission of Inquiry to have collaborated with the Romanian communist secret service and to have been a Securitate informer under the alias Horia.
Source: kronikaonline.ro, alba24.ro