BRATISLAVA, August 31, (WEBNOVINY) — The problem of dual citizenship on the Slovak side is heading to a definitive solution, Foreign Affairs Minister Mikulas Dzurinda told SITA news agency in an interview. „For a few weeks, I have been intensively communicating with my colleague, Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic. I feel that we have come to a definitive solution. I will not talk about its particulars, so that I would not do something bad,“ Dzurinda said and added that he needs to consent of the entire coalition to support this solution. „But it is quite possible that in a short time, consent can be reached and we will correct the response of the Slovak side. I consider it important not to punish Slovak citizens. Not to punish Slovak citizens living here, not to punish citizens, Slovaks, who legitimately apply for dual citizenship or other citizenship in Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, because they have been living there for years. Familiarly, I would say, it is necessary to sweep before our own threshold, “ Dzurinda stated. Only after then he plans to start developing activities towards Hungary.
„It is not normal to award dual citizenship massively, it is not normal to award dual citizenship without the existence of something like a lasting bond between a person and the country, for whose citizenship the person applies. What kind of a dual citizenship is it when people, who have lived for fifty years in Slovakia and who are unwilling to move from Slovakia, will receive Hungarian citizenship? What kind of a system is this?“ the minister asked. Also other countries made similar bad moves like Hungary, for example, Romanians towards Moldovans or again Hungary towards Ukrainians, Dzurinda added. „If I expand this principle, then suddenly I realize that even Italy can give massive dual citizenship to Italians, who live in Austria, or southern Tyrol. And now I reduce it a little bit and will ask a rhetorical question – What will the EU look like, if Spaniards will decided to award massively dual citizenship to Mexican or Cuban people? What will the free movement of persons and the labor market in the EU look like? “ Dzurinda asked.
The issue of dual citizenship is broader than only bilateral between Slovakia and Hungary, he emphasized. „I talked about it with my Austrian colleague [Michael Spindelegger, editor’s note] during my inaugural visit in Vienna and we agreed that it becomes a European issue and I am going to open this issue at the European soil in a proper way,“ he emphasized. This problem has many dimensions – the relationship with Hungary and relations with other countries. „Coming weeks or months will show, whether one of them will outrun the other, or it will eventually be solved in one package. But I want to handle it, because we should encourage trends that help us in Europe, and we should suppress trends that divide or threat us,“ Dzurinda concluded.
In May of this year, an amendment to Hungary’s Act on Citizenship was adopted, which introduces simplified rules for obtaining dual citizenship for people who do not have permanent residence in Hungary and have never lived there but whose ancestors are of Hungarian origin. The Hungarian Parliament approved the law and Hungarian authorities refused calls for consulting the legislation in advance with Slovakia. Slovakia responded by adopting an amendment to the law on Slovak citizenship later in May that stipulates that those who obtain citizenship of another country on the basis of an expression of will would lose their citizenship of the Slovak Republic.
SITA