The EU’s justice commissioner is sympathetic to Hungary’s view of the Slovak language law and shares Hungary’s opinion of it in a number of respects, Foreign Minister Peter Balazs told Hungarian journalists after talks with Jacques Barrot.
“I asked him, too, to represent this view” said Balazs.
At the talks, Balazs took up the issue of Slovakia’s denial of entry to President Laszlo Solyom with Barrot, who is the European Commission’s vice president.
Barrot advised the Hungarian government to turn to the EU commissioner responsible for the diversity of languages, Leonard Orban (Romanian).
“This is what we will do,” said Balazs, adding that Hungary wants changes to be made to the discriminatory law which came into force on September 1.
He said that the Swedish EU presidency was closely following developments and was putting “moral pressure on both countries” to resolve the issue.
Among the European forums concerning themselves with language-law issues, the most relevant was The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Its head, Knut Vollebaek, has already identified three problems with the law: the majority language is protected at the expense of the minority language, the law infringes too deeply into everyday life and it provides for punitive measures, he said.
It will be interesting to watch this unfold.
Leonard Orban is half-hungarian.