The European Commission considers Friday’s Hungarian-Slovak diplomatic incident a bilateral matter, spokesman Michael Mann told a Monday press briefing. The Commission is in no way affected in this matter, he said.
Asked whether there is an EU law to govern a conflict between member states, he said there is no specific rule.
A Brussels report quoting the Slovak press said Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had advised President László Sólyom to postpone his visit to Slovakia.
Mann was reportedly unable to say how the Schengen Zone can be reconciled with a ban on a President crossing a border.
EU is useless
So good we joined.
Of course there are ways to govern a conflict between member states…
When Britain (as an ally of Canada) and Spain had a dispute over fishing a few years back, the EU was falling over itself to intervene.
Could it be that Hungary and Slovakia just “aren’t important enough”?
Schengen is a separate agreement and also include non-member states, clearly states that any state can for special reasons (security etc) can restrict movement and require proper travel-documents, like Passports.
Lately Austria did this during some top-meeting (or was it football?). Germany does it on a regular basis when they fear all this Danish, Italian and French anarchist flooding some part of the country to protest against some top-meeting.
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Official persons, like a President for a Nation, are never regarded as private individuals. Same thing with a soldier on leave, he cannot travel to another country in his uniform. That would violate agreements and could be seen as an ‘aggressive act’, how ever silly that would be.
Same thing if a Police Officer in uniform, even if not on duty, or a plain clothes officer on duty, crosses the border without previous agreement.
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No wonder the rest of EU shakes their collective heads, sighs and says – “Children, children”
Mr Assumption it’s so obvious you are Anti Hungarian, why the hell you live here? Fuck off! You never ever want anything for Hungarians..
you are Anti Hungarian
Dove at August 25, 2009 6:21 PM
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Wrong, but as an Hungarian tax-payer I reserve the right to voice my opinion on how my tax-money is spent.
The ‘Anti Hungarian’-thing you and your vocal ‘Hungarian Nationalist’-friends do so good by yourselves.
Now you are hard at work destroying the best case against Slovakia(‘n Nationalists’) that you have had for years by childish acts by a President who seem to be so filled up by his own importance over the best for the Hungarian Nation.
Childish.
The point is that resolving the Magyar minority issue was sold as one of the chief benefits of joing the EU. As all actual Hungarians (i.e. non-Hungary hating-Swedes) know. In fact, those in Brussels were a bunch of cowards who hoped the problem would just go away as we all became captivated by the soon to be exported wonderous realities of EU life: i.e. eating a microwave frozen dinner from Tesco while watching the Mónika Show.
It’s not that they think we are stupid and childish. it’s that it really pisses them of when we are not as childish and stupid as they had hoped.
Mr. Solyom was invited by citizens of Slovakia to celebrate this day, which is as important to the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia as to those in Hungary.
It was organized and planned ahead of time with due diligence. This last-minute Slovak denial is ‘bush league’ and reeks of insecurity.
Hungarians in Slovakia are deserving of this visit as it will help to recognize and nurture Hungarian language and culture in this region.
Good for Mr. SOLYOM for attempting to do so. And good for the hungarian people for sticking together on this one.
Of course the ‘Slovak Nationalists’ had a field day by snubbing the Hungarian President, no doubt about it. The interpretation should probably be more like that the Slovak PM’s situation became impossible with a lot of pressure from the ‘Slovak Nationalists’ to snub the Hungarian President to come in to Slovakia on the 41 year ‘celebration’ of the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, in which Hungarian troops were part of.
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Think yourself if the Russian-speaking minority in Hungary would invite the Russian President on the same day as the Soviet troops entered Hungary in 1956, to invite a new symbol of Soviet WWII effort?
Would you feel provoked?
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“Mr. Solyom was invited by citizens of Slovakia to celebrate this day, which is as important to the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia as to those in Hungary”
I believe *that* day is August 20, not August 21, which is a important to the Slovaks and Czech, as the memory of 1956 is for the Hungarians.
Mr. Viking
1- Yes I personally may be provoked if a Russian minority in Hungary chose to celebrate that day and invited someone significant. So what? You are quite incorrect to suggest that the memory of 1956 is the same for everyone here. There are Hungarians who think upon ‘Soviet liberation’ fondly. The level of importance to Hungarians varies drastically. A very brief look at recent events will spell out how divisive it can be.
2 – There is no parallel between ethnic Russians in Hungary and ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia. Zero. A closer look at the mixed origins of the region, the centuries of governance and Hungarian presence will tell you this.
3 – And yes, the specific date is August 20th. However, you’ll notice that festivities tend to last the entire week. I’m sure Mr. Solyom was at home watching the fireworks on that specific day.
Enough looking to the past…this day is very meaningful to the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Why should it not be endorsed by Mr. Solyom…especially if invited, organized and planned well ahead of time? Why discriminate against minorities by not allowing this?
Visits like this, whether official or unofficial, happen all the time without incident.
isti,
“especially if invited, organized and planned well ahead of time”
This is the problem:
A foreign Head of State is invited by private individuals. This is not Schengen-rules etc that applies to us normal people. The rules here are common in the diplomatic world, like:
- A foreign Head of State does *only* accept an invitation to visit another country if that *State* invites him.
- A foreign Head of State can go on a private trip, *but* then he does not do any speeches etc, like Sólyom was planning to do.
- A foreign Head of State basically always meet with his counter-part, or a representative for him, if for no other reason to show ‘respect’.
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Sólyom broke all these rules, either of pure stupidity, arrogance or just to provoke.
And what was the gain for Sólyom and Hungary for this?
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As you write yourself, the inauguration could have been on the 19th or 22nd. If that would have appeased the Slovaks – Why not?
As I wrote earlier the ‘Slovak Nationalists’ pushed the Slovak PM in front of them and Sólyom helped the ‘Slovak Nationalists’ bring home their message.
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Now, the Slovak embassy in Budapest have been attacked with petrol-bomb/s/, is that the situation Sólyom wanted?
But it distracts from the Debrecen-Nazis of course.
This is what the establishment wanted..
It’s becoming more and more obvious that Hungary is running for a position of the most unpredictable and urcertain element of the entire EU. It’s not true that slovak-hungarian relationships are the worst in Europe. The true is that Hungary has the worst relations with more than just one of its neigbours and it won’t get better until Hungary will not reconsider its approach towards them and particularly towards hungarian minorities living in these countries and won’t stop treating them like they were hungarian soldiers dropped on enemy territory. Members of hungarian communities in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia are not hungarian citizens, they’re citizens of Slovakia, Romania and Serbia and if Hungary really wants to be a modern european country, not just one using this vocabulary, it’s in its upmost interest to encourage these minorities to be good and loyal citizens of these countries and not their destabilizing elements. That’s what one would expect not only from a modern civilized country, but from a good neigbour also.
Hungary and many Hungarians are in a time warp. Trianon is a reality and borders are fixed!
The right-wing (Jobbik) sorceress donning a uniform is laughable.
Is Hungary about to invade Slovakia, or vice versa?
Hungary’s provinces have been decimated. Gypsies are in the majority in many villages. They have no skills of any kind, agricultural or industrial.
Locals want to sell their farms and houses as quickly as possible and go to the cities. Many young people and the middle-aged leave the country altogether to find work.
The country implodes on social and economic
catastrophes courtesy of the corrupt, commie, MSZP government led by Gordon Bajnai.
No matter though! Ethnic Hungarians in foreign lands should be able to speak Hungarian in public
places. What a fucking joke. Pea-brained quai-nationalist cant – docile rhetoric for the hard-of-thinking.
Stand up and fight for the many wrong-doings in your own country before entering into pathetic, petty-minded squabbles with Count Slovak et al!!
Sign away patriots
http://www.azennevemben.hu