What happened? The Slovak PM called the Hungarian foreign minister a “friend of Slovakia”

Slovak PM Igor Matovič would modify the country’s law on double citizenship because Hungary helped Bratislava buy 2 million Russian SputnikV vaccines. The Slovak PM wrote on his Facebook page that Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister of Hungary, is “a friend of Slovakia.”

According to Index.hu, Matovič thanked Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in a Facebook post saying that he is a friend of Slovakia since Szijjártó helped Bratislava buy Russian SputnikV vaccines, enough to inoculate 1 million citizens. Ma7.sk added that

the Slovakian prime minister also called Mr Szijjártó to thank him again for his help.

Matovič even promised to deal with the problem of double citizenship poisoning the relationship between the two countries for almost a decade. The Slovakian parliament modified the relevant laws in 2010. That is important because, today, everybody loses their Slovakian citizenship who becomes a citizen of another country. Therefore, most Hungarians living in Slovakia did not become Hungarian citizens. Even though more than 450 thousand citizens of Slovakia regard themselves as Hungarians,

the number of double citizens is only a couple of thousand.

This rate is much higher in Transylvania (Romania), Serbia, and Transcarpathia (Ukraine). 

Now, the Slovakian PM said that his relationship was very good with Péter [Szijjártó] and PM Viktor Orbán, so they can talk about the question of double citizenship. He added that he would modify the relevant laws allowing all Slovakian citizens to take up another country’s citizenship without losing their Slovakian one. Interestingly, a couple of days before, Bratislava summoned the Hungarian ambassador because Péter Szijjártó slammed the Slovak secretary of foreign affairs.