The opposition has broken the national consensus concerning Slovakia’s state language law with its statements made after the recent prime ministerial meeting, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai told public television on Sunday evening.
“We are struggling in the foreign policy arena in vain if they attack us in the back at home. They should refrain from such attitudes,” he said.
Zsolt Nemeth (Fidesz), head of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called the summit meeting and the joint statement signed by Bajnai and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico a “serious, humiliating diplomatic fiasco” for Hungary. Nemeth said just after the summit that “Fico has mopped the floor with Bajnai”.
In response, the prime minister said, “those who expected anyone to wear sackcloth and ashes are unfamiliar with diplomacy and the negotiators’ frame of mind. They were either unreal in their expectations or preferred to see growing tension and vehement debates rather than a solution.”
The TV programme cited a recent Median poll showing that 78 percent of respondents welcomed the summit, 16 percent opposed it and six percent had not heard of it at all.
Bajnai qualified the meeting as a success as it helped the ethnic Hungarian minority of Slovakia. “We have achieved more than what we had expected,” he said.
The prime minister noted that Slovakia agreed to enforce the recommendation of the OSCE high commissioner on national minorities in drafting the rules for implementing the amended state language law.
Concerning Slovakia’s denial of entry to Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, Bajnai called it another achievement that both sides had expressed regret over the incident.
“Those who expected anyone to wear sackcloth and ashes are unfamiliar with diplomacy… They were either unreal in their expectations or preferred to see growing tension and vehement debates rather than a solution.”
Couldn’t have put it better myself. The luxury of being in Opposition.