Celebrating the Hungarian national holiday in traditional costume, Târgu Secuiesc, in Transylvania, 15 March 2011

The Szeklers have come to Brussels

The Hungarian minority region in Romania is to open an office in Brussels. Bucharest sees the move as a Hungarian provocation, the daily Romania Libera as merely an example of European regions wanting more money and more autonomy.

Published on 3 June 2011 at 15:08
Celebrating the Hungarian national holiday in traditional costume, Târgu Secuiesc, in Transylvania, 15 March 2011

The Hungarians in Romania want territorial autonomy, and because they cannot get it from the Romanians, they will take what they can, and as they can, through Brussels.

The opening in Brussels of an office symbolically baptised “Székelyland,” through which the inhabitants of the departments of Covasna, Harghita and Mureş could move more quickly and more easily to gain access to European funds, has reopened the case of “mioriţa” concerns [a reference to an old Romanian pastoral ballad, The Little Ewe, which has specific references to the Romanian identity].

Since 1919 the Romanian political elite has been distressed at regular intervals by the idea of ​​losing Transylvania through the influence of Budapest on this province, which was modernised under the last Habsburgs at the same time as the rest of Central Europe, and through the ability of the Romanian Magyars to broadcast their pleas beyond the borders of the country. The “Székelyland” office in Brussels, set up through the efforts of Pastor László Tökés [Vice-President of the European Parliament] is not “useless for the EU and a gratuitous provocation,” as suggested by the former Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu. Nor is it “an unprecedented attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Romania”, as declared – in a panic – by the Liberal MEP Ramona Mănescu. Rather, it is a dual solution: practical and emotional.

László Tökés, the architect of the lobbying bureau in the European capital, is trying in particular through this innovation to attract to his side the Magyars in Transylvania by showing them that they can reap benefits not just by stretching out a hand to Bucharest, as the UDMR [Democratic Union of Magyars of Romania, member of the governing coalition] have been doing, but also by opening roads to the institutions of Brussels. In the next election Tökés wants to take the reins of a new formation, the Popular Party of Magyars of Transylvania, which will compete with the UDMR.

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Stereotypes and historically outdated prejudices

László Tökés is sketching out for the Magyars in Transylvania a map of possibilities that goes beyond the two power centres, Bucharest and Budapest, to which the Hungarian minority has usually looked for favours. The Székelyland office in Brussels is lodged in the House of Hungarian Regions for reasons more of economy than politics, but the snuggling up under the wings of Budapest has rekindled feelings of fear, frustration and anxiety among Romanians.

The Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi is expressing on behalf of the government the traditional fear of Hungary – as if Budapest really could get its hands on chunks of Transylvania. Romania “is not shocked for nothing,” said the chief diplomat, arguing that the designation of a “Székelyland” would be “a process by which a popular name is wrongly portrayed as the identifying name of a region.” The leaders of the PSD (Social Democratic Party) and PNL (National Liberal Party) also want to “stand up against” the separatist intentions of Magyars within the Romanian Parliament, as they have done in the past. But neither they, nor the Minister of Foreign Affairs, can explain how the Székelyland office undermines the integrity of Romania. President Traian Băsescu takes a “dim view” of this approach, yet recognises that there are no “political consequences” and that it just shows “an element of lack of consideration for the Constitution and for Romanians.”

The sensitivity of the Romanian leaders to the ideas of the inhabitants of the Székely province, who want more money to come back into their counties, neglected for years by the administration in Bucharest, shows that the political elite remains a slave to certain stereotypes and historically outdated prejudices. Viewed from abroad, the exaggerated response of Romania’s politicians to latent dangers can be interpreted as insecurity: a large state, member of the EU and NATO, frightened by the imperialist history of its neighbour.

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