Friday

29th Mar 2024

Opinion

The Slovak-Hungarian 'cold war'

  • "The EU as conflict resolution mechanism only works when those involved want it to work" (Photo: EUobserver)

It seldom makes the headlines, but to anyone who follows these things, it's obvious - relations between Slovakia and Hungary could hardly be worse. It's no exaggeration to call it a kind of cold war.

On the face of it, this is odd. Two EU states should not find themselves in such a dysfunctional relationship, for this is precisely what the EU was set up to prevent. The EU, after all, is the best conflict resolution mechanism that Europe has ever had, yet here it has simply stopped working.

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Before accession, both states - the EU has member states, not "nations" - were required to sort out their bilateral relations, which to a large extent was done. But potential for trouble remained, overwhelmingly because as between Slovakia and Hungary, state and nation do not coincide.

There is a small Slovak minority in Hungary, maybe 200,000 strong or 2 percent of the population and there is a rather larger Hungarian minority in Slovakia, making up over 10 percent of the population.

The problems mostly affect the latter and surfaced almost immediately after the 2006 elections in Slovakia, when the present government came to power. The left-wing Smer (Direction) party made the Slovak National Party (SNS), led by Jan Slota, one of its coalition partners.

The SNS never concealed it radical nationalist views and Slota has become well known for his anti-Roma and anti-Hungarian outbursts, like declaring that he would like to get into a tank and raze Budapest. Most Western commentators pooh-poohed the danger of admitting an extremist party like the SNS into the government of an EU state. The EU itself swallowed its misgivings.

In practice, this means that the EU has largely abandoned its conflict resolving remit, thereby leaving the problem to fester. This has two aspects - a growing anxiety on the part of Slovakia's Hungarian minority and a deterioration in Slovak-Hungarian relations.

The EU's passivity is explained by a number of factors. The Slovak economy is performing well and the country has just joined the eurozone. Slovak diplomacy in Brussels and elsewhere has been thorough and successful in minimising the fallout from Slota's outbursts. The Hungarian government seems helpless and is mostly inactive, fearful of being accused of nationalism. Besides, the EU has precious few instruments that might help.

What is surprising, perhaps, is that that the European socialists, usually quick off the mark to speak up for minorities, appear to have no problems with Slota. This becomes more understandable given Smer's left-wing leanings, but all the same it is unexpected that the European left should tolerate Slota's racism and his baiting of Hungarians.

Slota's description of the Hungarian foreign minister Kinga Göncz, as "that unkempt woman" produced not a squeak from anyone, not even the feminist bodies that usually rush to condemn male chauvinism. The same thing happened with Hedvig Malina, a young Hungarian woman in Slovakia, who was beaten up by Slovak skinheads for speaking Hungarian.

Are we seeing a double standard or just pragmatism? The latter most likely. The PES is determined to maximise the number of its seats in the forthcoming EP elections and if that means all-out support for Smer and its disastrous coalition partner, so be it. Besides, the PES has written off Hungary's socialist government and refers privately to the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány as "the dead man".

Various lessons can be drawn from this state of affairs. The EU as conflict resolution mechanism only works when those involved want it to work. But that needs confidence, something that is absent in Budapest. Similarly, while the EU likes to think of itself as "post-national", classical ethnic minority problems don't go away just because everyone would like them to.

Then, sometimes, party political interest can overwrite principle. Well, we know that already, that's politics. Finally neglecting a problem for whatever reason makes it more difficult to settle later. The Slovak-Hungarian relationship must be rebalanced, and that includes treating the minority as fully equal citizens of Slovakia or else EU citizenship is itself devalued. Besides, leaving the problem alone is a bad precedent that could very likely find imitators elsewhere. One case of discrimination not treated encourages others to behave badly.

The author is a Member of the European Parliament for Hungary and formerly Jean Monnet Professor of Politics, University College London

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

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