BRATISLAVA, December 14, (WEBNOVINY) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is paying a brief working visit to Slovakia on Tuesday, had a working lunch with a delegation of the non-parliamentary Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK). He will not meet with representatives of the parliamentary MOST-HID party, established by former SMK chairman Bela Bugar, which also represents interests of ethnic minorities in Slovakia. SMK chairman Jozsef Berenyi told SITA news agency on Tuesday that they discussed the priorities of the upcoming Hungary’s EU presidency. “We also spoke about the most important issues of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia, such as the Language Act, dual citizenship, the [official] use of minority languages, and cross-border cooperation.
Berenyi pointed out in particular the problems with dual citizenship, when Slovak citizens, who after January 1 apply for Hungarian citizenship, will loose the Slovak one. “It is also in our interest that matters of dual citizenship be resolved as soon as possible. Changes defined in the government program statement are delayed. If a change is adopted as late as in February or March, a certain group of citizens would lose Slovak citizenship, Berenyi said. He also estimates that these topics will be addressed at the subsequent bilateral meeting of Orban with Slovakia’s Prime Minister Iveta Radicova. However, the SMK leader did not ask Viktor Orban for help in this issue.
Since his election as SMK leader on July 10, 2010, Jozsef Berenyi has unofficially met with Viktor Orban four times.
The SMK did not make it to parliament in the last parliamentary elections in Slovakia held in June 2010 for the first time since 1993, when the present day Slovak Republic became an independent state. The party was part of the governing coalition in Slovakia for two election terms, from 1998 to 2002 and from 2002 to 2006.
SITA