Ethnic minority rights in central and Eastern Europe: The case of the Hungarian 'status law'

Government and Opposition

Volumn 41, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 401-421

  Chiva, Cristina ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33744964510     PISSN: 0017257X     EISSN: 14777053     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.2006.00181.x     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. 2001. évi LXII törvény a szomszédos államohban élo magyarokról, available at www.htmh.hu in Hungarian,
2. as well as in English as Act LXII of 2001 on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries (henceforth Act LXII of 2001).
3. 2003. évi LVIII törvény a szomszédos államohban élo magyarokról szóló 2001. évi LXII törvény módosításáról
4. and its English translation, Act LVIII of 2003 Concerning Amendments of the Act LXII of 2001 on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries (henceforth Act LVIII of 2003) are available at www.htmh.hu.
5. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983;
6. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990;
7. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1983;
8. Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1992;
9. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, London, Verso, 1991.
10. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, p. 25.
11. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Ibid., p. 26.
12. Anna Vachudová and Tim Snyder, 'Are Transitions Transitory? Two Types of Political Change in Eastern Europe since 1989', East European Politics and Societies, 11: 1 (1997), pp. 1-35.
13. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed. Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. According to Brubaker, nationalizing states are 'ethnically heterogeneous yet configured as nation-states, whose political elites promote . . . the language, culture, demographic position, economic flourishing or political hegemony of the nominally state-bearing nation'. Within these states, there are national minorities 'whose leaders demand cultural or territorial autonomy and resist actual or perceived policies or processes of assimilation or discrimination'. Another factor is represented by the external national 'homelands' of these minorities, 'whose elites . . . closely monitor the situation of their co-ethnics, . . . vigorously protest alleged violations of their rights and assert the right, even the obligation, to defend their interests' (p. 57).
14. Brigid Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship, Nationalising Political Space: A Framework for Interpreting the Hungarian "Status Law" as a New Form of Kin-State Policy in Central and Eastern Europe', ESRC 'One Europe or Several' Working Paper 40/2002, available at www.one-europe.ac.uk;
15. Michael Stewart, 'The Hungarian Status Law: A New European Form of Transnational Politics?', Transnational Communities Programme Working Paper 02-09, 2002, available at www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk.
16. Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship', p. 10.
17. Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship', Ibid., p. 10 (original emphasis).
18. Stewart, 'The Hungarian Status Law', p. 26.
19. Stewart, 'The Hungarian Status Law', Ibid., p. 25.
20. European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Report on the Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by their Kin-State, adopted at its 48th Plenary Meeting, Venice, 19-20 October 2001, CDL-INF. 2001, p. 19, available at www.venice.coe.int (henceforth Venice Commission Report).
21. Report on the Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by their Kin-State, 2001, p. 19, available at www.venice.coe.int Ibid.
22. The majority of these are Roma (142,000), followed by Germans (30,000), and Slovaks and Romanians (10,000 each). Ethnic minority organizations disagree, estimating that there are 400,000 to 600,000 Roma, 100,000-110,000 Slovaks, and 200,000 Germans, as well as other ethnic groups, up to a total between 835,000 and 1,083,950. See Andrea Krizsán, 'The Hungarian Minority Protection System: A Flexible Approach to the Adjudication of Ethnic Claims', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 20: 2 (2000), pp. 247-62.
23. Government of Hungary, 'Paper Containing the Position of the Hungarian Government in Relation to the Act on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries', submitted to the European Commission for Democracy through Law, 2001.
24. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline (henceforth RFE/RL Newsline), 18 January 2002.
25. Susan Gal, 'Bartók's Funeral: Representations of Europe in Hungarian Political Rhetoric', American Ethnologist, 18: 3 (1991), pp. 440-58.
26. Csilla Kiss, 'From Liberalism to Conservatism: The Federation of Young Democrats in Post-Communist Hungary', East European Politics and Societies, 16: 3 (2002), pp. 739-63.
27. Brigid Fowler, 'Nation, State, Europe and National Revival in Hungarian Party Politics: The Case of the Millenial Commemorations', Europe-Asia Studies, 56: 1 (2004), pp. 54-83.
28. However, since EU legislation prohibits the preferential treatment of ethnic groups, the law does not apply to Austria, and was not to apply to neighbouring countries such as Slovakia and Slovenia once they joined the EU.
29. See Zsuzsa Csergo, 'Beyond Ethnic Division: Majority-Minority Debate about the Post-Communist State in Romania and Slovakia', East European Politics and Societies, 16: 1 (2002), pp. 1-29.
30. Klara Kingston, 'The Hungarian Status Law', RFE/RL East European Perspectives, 3: 17 (October 2001), available at www.rferl.org/eepreport/.
31. RFE/RL Newsline, 27 and 29 June 2001.
32. RFE/RL Newsline, 12 July 2001;
33. Commission of the European Communities, 2007 Regular Report on Hungary's Progress Towards Accession, SEC (2001) 1748,
34. and 2002 Regular Report on Hungary's Progress Towards Accession, SEC (2002) 1404. Both are available at www.europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement.
35. Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship'.
36. Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship'. Ibid., p. 32.
37. Government of Romania, 'The Official Position of the Romanian Government on the Law on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries', submitted to the European Commission for Democracy through Law, 2001.
38. Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship', p. 41.
39. Hungarian Foreign Minister János Mártonyi, quoted in Fowler, 'Fuzzing Citizenship', p. 46.
40. RFE/RL Newsline, 5 October 2001.
41. RFE/RL Newsline, 2 November 2001.
42. Kingston, The Hungarian Status Law'.
43. Act LXII of 2001, Article 20.
44. Kingston, 'The Hungarian Status Law'.
45. These principles were: 'the territorial sovereignty of states'; pacia sunt servanda (especially with respect to bilateral treaties), 'friendly relations amongst states' and 'the respect of fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular the prohibition of discrimination'. See Venice Commission. Repart, part E.
46. Venice Commission. Repart, Ibid., part E.
47. Venice Commission. Repart, Part E Ibid.
48. Venice Commission. Repart, Part E Ibid.
49. Venice Commission. Repart, Part E Ibid.
50. 'Memorandum of Under-standing between the Government of the Republic of Hungary and the Government of Romania concerning the Law on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries and Issues of Bilateral Co-operation', Bucharest, 22 December 2001, available at www.htmh.hu. The original language of the memorandum is English.
51. A related development - the lifting of visa requirements for Romanian citizens travelling to Schengen countries, claimed by Nastase as a victory - may have contributed to this particular provision. As Hungary and Slovakia were scheduled to join the EU in 2004, but Romania only in 2007, the FIDESZ-led government viewed some provisions in the status law as a way of easing travel and work conditions for Hungarians living outside the EU. However, since Romanian citizens no longer need a visa for the Schengen space, Hungary's joining the EU would no longer represent a significant obstacle for ethnic co-nationals.
52. Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Preferential Treatment of National Minorities by the Kin-state: The Case of the Hungarian Law of 19 June 2001 on Hungarians Living in Neighbouring Countries ('Magyars'), Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, DOC. 9744 rev, 13 May 2003 (available at assembly.coe.int).
53. Act LVIII of 2003, Preamble.
54. The text of the agreement (in English, the original language) can be found at www.htmh.hu.
55. RFE/RL Newsline, 21 July 2003.