“Minority legal protection affords irreplaceable guarantees for the Hungarian peoples within both the Carpathian Basin and for people living in the diaspora”, The Office of the Prime Minister’s Ministerial Commissioner for National Policy Péter Szilágyi emphasised on Monday in his opening speech to participants of the ninth summer university entitled Minority Protection in Europe.

At the opening of the conference organised jointly by the Institute for the Protection of Minority Rights (KJI) and the National Policy Research Institute (NPKI), Mr. Szilágyi said: “Participants will be able to acquire a picture of the state of cross-border Hungarians, including those living within the diaspora, and legal protection with the help of speakers from the administration and experts from both Hungary and the Carpathian Basin”.

“Following 1920, a significant proportion of the Hungarian nation was forced to live outside the country’s borders, and there are currently 2.5 million Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin living outside their mother country”, he reminded those present.

The Ministerial Commissioner said it is important how neighbouring majority nations approach the Hungarians living there, and what legal environment the majority administrations there create for them.

According to Mr. Szilágyi, national policy became one of the priority areas of government politics in 2010, and the administration is doing everything possible at both bilateral and multilateral level to ensure that Hungarians living in neighbouring countries are afforded the rights to which they are due.

“Minority rights have suffered a severe setback in certain countries”, the Ministerial Commissioner pointed out.

Mr. Szilágyi said the national policy efforts being made since 2010 have achieved major success, including within the field of legal protection.

Summarising the national policy results of the last ten years, he said: “We are truly able to think, live and work within a Carpathian basin space; (…) the concept of solidarity is affecting every area of life”.

“The economic and cultural funding being provided by the Hungarian state is providing the opportunity for our compatriots to experience their Hungarian identity and to remain Hungarian”, he said.

This is the ninth time that the Institute for the Protection of Minority Rights and the National Policy Research Institute have organised the Minority Protection in Europe summer university; this year in virtual space in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Topics of discussion at the conference, which continues until Friday, will include the role of the European Council in the legal protection of autochthonous national minorities, language rights, and the opportunities available to Hungarian national policy and minority protection within the European Union.

(MTI/Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)