This is how the government support ethnic Hungarians in Serbia
The Hungarian government’s economic aid programme has helped ethnic Hungarians in Serbia’s northern Vojvodina province stay and prosper in their homelands, Levente Magyar, state secretary at the foreign ministry, said in Subotica (Szabadka) on Thursday.
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Marking the closure of the programme’s first, six year cycle, Magyar said that the scheme had helped the local Hungarian community gain unprecedented political strength and organisation. “A new world has opened up for the local community… we have not yet reached the goal, but a very important milestone,” he said.
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The “success story” of the programme is not only made up of development projects, but “dozens of new or renovated schools, kindergartens, churches, and community centres” as well as links between the infrastructure of the two countries facilitating easier access for Vojvodinians to Hungary and the whole of Europe,
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Magyar said.
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Magyar noted that dozens of Hungarian companies were now active in Serbia, their investments totalling 53 billion forints (EUR 145m).
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István Pásztor, the head of ethnic Hungarian party VMSZ, said that in the past 6 years 14,169 bidders had been awarded in the programme, 1,110 homes were built and 667 new ventures were set up. He said that the programme’s achievements were not only important from an economic point of view, since
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“they improve individual and community life, politics, and the public atmoshpere, things that cannot be evaluated financially”.
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Source: MTI