“That realisation has happened in Serbia, and the same realisation is ripening in Slovakia; we trust that it will happen in Romania, too, sooner or later,” Kövér said in his opening address to a Hungarian cultural festival.

In his address, Kövér noted that Romania’s ethnic Hungarian community was shrinking, and blamed both the “anti-Hungarian” attitude of that country’s political elite and the “poor performance of Hungary’s policy for Hungarians abroad or rather the lack of such policies”.

He added that the situation of ethnic Hungarians could improve should Romania realise that “preserving the homeland in the Carpathian Basin and eastern Europe is a shared challenge for peoples of the region”. On another subject, Kövér encouraged ethnic Hungarians to participate in Romania’s parliamentary elections in December and support the Hungarian parties.

“In the Bucharest parliament no one else but the Hungarians will represent Hungarian interests, while an effective Hungarian presence in Romanian politics could also contribute to an improvement in relations between Hungary and Romania,” he said.

Kövér also encouraged voters of dual Romanian and Hungarian citizenship to cast their ballot in Hungary’s upcoming quota referendum and “vote against the forced settlement (of migrants) as planned by the European Union”.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Boda L. Gergely