Should Hungarian expats have a say in the country’s public life?

More than 400,000 thousand people of voting age have left Hungary to pursue a career abroad, but their participation in their home countries’ public life has been widely debated. DW Magyar has looked into the issue. 

Hungarians abroad

As a matter of fact, the pandemic considerably slowed down the recent trend of Hungarians emigrating from their home country to, mainly, Western Europe. Besides, in 2019 more Hungarian citizens moved back to Hungary than the number of those who left their motherland. Nevertheless, according to the UN, more than 632.000 Hungarian citizen lives abroad. Their participation in Hungarian public life has been debated vigorously since the emigrating trend started to gain traction in early 2010, and publicly stating one’s opinions has become much easier on Social Media. From a legislative point of view, Hungarians living abroad can be categorised in two ways: those who are working or living abroad, but alongside their Hungarian citizenship, they have residency in Hungary, and those ethnic Hungarian citizens, who are living abroad but do not have residency in Hungary.

“For hundreds of years, the right to vote has always been linked to citizenship,”

said Prof. Melani Barlai from Andrássy University Budapest to Deutsche Welle about the participation of Hungarian emigrants in Hungarian political life. “A Hungarian citizen is part of the political community, there are no borders regarding this.” One argument against the emigrant’s participation is that they do not contribute to the state finances by being taxed in a different country, but professor Barlai says this logic is at fault. “These people regularly support their family members living in Hungary by transferring money to help them, which is then reflected in the Hungarian GDP.” According to the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), in 2019, Hungarian emigrants transferred more than 158 billion forints (383 million euros) to their home country.

Politics online

As political communication and participation in public matters moved to the online sphere, it has been getting much easier for those living abroad to take part in public discourse. “A 2019 research paper of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) confirms that Hungarian emigrants do follow Hungarian political events, they are interested in political affairs, and are media consumers. Media consumption does not require people to be physically present in the country, Hungarian news portals are equally accessible from Germany, Austria or Canada”, reasons Ballai. The university professor also believes that expats’ participation does not differ from the youth’s, with the traditional ways of taking part in political discourse giving way to modern forms. “I think after the pandemic the world has realised that you don’t necessarily have to be present to participate in an activity, and the internet’s role in political participation has increased. The traditional ways of being active in politics are not attractive to young Hungarians, i. e. to vote. However, they are becoming more active in the online space by voicing their opinion, signing petitions or taking part in group activities.”

Read more: Government supports preserving identity of diaspora Hungarians

The DW video in Hungarian:

Read more: Radical increase for education support for ethnic Hungarians beyond the borders

Author: István Köles

Source: DW Magyar