Relations between Hungary and Slovakia are no longer cold or tense: since the incident in Révkomárom (Komárno) last Friday, they are decidedly hostile. It's true that Hungarian diplomacy is still trying to deal with the events in the spirit of "Oh, we'll discuss the problems". This will be difficult to do, however, due to the nature of the affair: only an hour before the planned event, Slovakia announced that it would not allow László Sólyom to enter its territory, even though the Hungarian head of state had informed his Slovakian partner that he would be participating in the unveiling of Saint Stephen's statue in Komárno on August 21st.

In order to understand the case, one must know that similarly to Hungary, parliamentary elections will be held next year in Slovakia as well. Relations between the three governing parties of the country - the theoretically social democratic Smer, led by Robert Fico, the Slovak National Party (SNS), led by the nationalist, Ján Slota, and Vladimír Mečiar's People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) - have become tense. Or more precisely, Prime Minister Fico wants to be rid of his coalition partners.

Corrupt nationalists

The prime minister sacked Viliam Turský, environmental minister delegated by SNS, the day before the incident in Komárno. The last straw for Fico had been when the head of the portfolio had announced as the winner of one of the tenders the company of his own advisor. Within the last year, he is the third person to leave this post because of corruption. All three belonged to Ján Slota's close circle of friends. The prime minister announced that he would no longer support nominees of SNS. Consequently, he would personally select the new minister of environment, whose duty will be to terminate all shady contracts.

"The governing parties have launched the elections campaign" was Ján Slota's reaction, after he decided that - "in the interest of the country's stability" - his party would remain in the government. For tactical reasons, Robert Fico does not yet wish to admit in public that he no longer considers Slota and Mečiar as coalition partners. Mečiar has lost half of his supporters and two mandates in the European Parliament, while in the case of SNS, it was thanks to luck that the party managed to get into the European Parliament. While the support of the two smaller parties of the coalition has decreased, that of Smer is steadily increasing. With his scandals and nouveau-riche lifestyle, Slota has gone too far and is now starting to become unacceptable even to the voters of Smer. That is why, although Fico will not need the two smaller parties in his future government, he wants to get hold of a significant percentage of their suporters. And in order to be able to do this, he has to be just like Slota, or even more so. In other words, he has to fight against the Hungarian "threat" as a hyper-nationalist.

The language law as a weapon

The present coalition started organising the attacks against Hungary and the Hungarian minority living in Slovakia even before the parliamentary elections of 2006. President of the Republic, Ivan Gašparovič signed a secret pact with Robert Fico, Ján Slota and Vladimír Mečiar. The head of state didn't really have to convince the politicians - who were following the Romanian line of thought regarding a unified nation state - that the Hungarian Coalition Party, which had been in power for almost two electoral cycles, should be excluded from the coalition following parliamentary elections. The Slovakian politicians were of the opinion that since their homeland was now a member of NATO and the European Union, it was unnecessary to use Hungarians as a political cover towards the outside world. The time for proving that ethnic minorities were being treated democratically was over.

Since June 2006, during the reign of the three-party coalition, quite a number of anti-Hungarian atrocities have taken place, one of the last being the modification of the language law. It is no coincidence that the existing law was changed and made stricter just now. Hungarian foreign minister Péter Balázs visited Bratislava in mid-May with the intention of "opening a new chapter in Hungarian-Slovakian relations". In this spirit, the leader of Hungarian diplomacy wanted to organise a meeting of prime ministers by summer. Just a little before the planned meeting, however, Fico suggested that the language law be modified. It was after this that Hungarian prime minister Gordon Bajnai cancelled the talks. The new Hungarian foreign minister, who sincerely believed in a change of style and content regarding relations with our northern neighbours, had to accept his diplomatic defeat.

It was after the referendum concerning dual citizenship - held in December 2004 - that Slovakia and all the other neighbouring countries with large populations of ethnic Hungarians grew bolder. Both the anti-propaganda of the Hungarian government and the invalidity of the referendum only re-inforced the neighbouring countries in their belief that Hungary did not want to build  constitutional relations with their fellow Hungarians living on the other side of the border. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) has been excluded from the Bucharest government. As for Serbia, although it was the Hungarian votes that helped president Boris Tadić and the democratic forces of Serbia to power, the minority's interest representatives have been played down.

The ineffectiveness of a diplomacy of appearances

It was into this political space that László Sólyom entered, openly declaring his sympathy towards trans-border Hungarians. Although according to the constitution, the head of state does not forge constitutional relations with Hungarian minorities, his personal appearance symbolizes support. However, the states that were created as a result of the Treaty of Trianon protested against him in unison. This spring, for example, just before March 15th (one of our most important national holidays), the Hungarian head of state's visit to Vojvodina fell through because of the Serbian authorities. The three-day visit that Sólyom had planned was received with reservations by the cabinet of the Serbian head of state. According to Belgrade, it would have jeopardized the settlement of political issues. Consequently, the Hungarian head of state decided to spend only a few hours in Vojvodina, as a result of which the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians cancelled the invitation. Later, wishing to accept the invitation of Transylvanian Hungarians, László Sólyom was planning to travel to Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş). However, the Romanian authorities almost upset these plans as the premier's plane did not get permission to land in the town, so in the end he had to cross the border by car.

Hungarian diplomacy has still not sounded the reveille, even after the incident in Komárno. Foreign minister Péter Balázs' statement brought former times to mind when he said they would request an explanation of the incident, the first sign of which was that the Slovakian ambassador was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Balázs is to meet the Slovakian foreign minister at a conference in Slovenia, and he will probably broach the issue there. Judging by the reactions of the Slovaks, however, there is dwindling hope that we will be able to accomplish anything by polite diplomacy alone. For the time being, Brussels does not wish to intervene: as Michael Mann, spokesman for the European Commission said, the European Union considers it a bi-lateral affair. It's still a question whether the Union can endorse one of its member states restoring border control - in theory - without prior notice, with regard to the citizen of another member state, who is incidentally the premier of a state that is theoretically an ally.    

The ice ages

A. B.
reflektor@hetivalasz.hu

The present freezing-point of Hungarian-Slovakian relations is a logical consequence of earlier ice ages. Already in 1993, when our neighbour became independent, the conflict was coded, and not only because of the public feeling according to which Hungarians were responsible for having oppressed the Slovakians for a thousand years. Bratislava took responsibility for one of the heritages of Socialist Czechoslovakia, the case of the Gabčíkovo - Nagymaros Waterworks/Dams. Although in 1997 the International Court of Justice in the Hague condemned both countries (Hungary had unlawfully terminated the waterworks treaty of 1977, while Slovakia had unlawfully set the power plant into operation), dialogue was made more difficult by the fact that for our neighbour, the waterworks had become a symbol of independent statehood. Julius Binder, leader of the company in charge of the investment project, argued in favour of the construction (the costs of which were constantly rising) by saying the dam would protect Slovakia from Hungarian imperialism.

It later came to light that this emblematic investment project of the Mecˇiar-era was gobbling up Slovakian taxpayers' money because of excessive corruption. During the reign of Vladimír Mecˇiar (the politician was prime minister of independent Slovakia between 1993 and 1998), relations between the countries were almost as bad as they are now under Fico, despite the fact that the Horn-cabinet did everything possible in the interest of a "European-type reconciliation". Even though the two countries signed a basic treaty in 1995 - in which Hungary once again recognized the inviolability of the borders, the Slovakian politician continued to regard Hungary and the ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia as a threat to his country's sovereignty.

And it was from this feeling that the measures limiting the language use of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia originated. These provisions also violated the treaty. Mecˇiar was not satisfied with political acts. It came to light, thanks to a secret parliamentary report from Bratislava which was leaked in 1999, that the Slovakian state security services, led by Ivan Lexa, a close friend of the prime minister, had taken part in actions in several neighbouring countries, Hungary among them. In Austria, they had wanted to give rise to suspicion regarding Germany. In the Czech Republic, they were planning to prevent the country's integration into NATO and the European Union by sparking anti-Roma feelings. In the case of Hungary, they had wanted to destabilize the country through an action under the code-name of Omega - in the series of explosions preceding the parliamentary elections of 1998, the Slovakian secret services had helped the underworld.

When Mikulás Dzurinda and Viktor Orbán came to power in 1998, relations improved significantly, but conflicts followed later on. The Slovakian prime minister would not tolerate the Hungarian status law, adopted in June 2001, especially the educational allowance that Hungary was planning to pay to ethnic Hungarian families with children. Even the more moderate Slovakian politicians (for example, František Mikloško, Christian-Democrat member of parliament) started mentioning "the dangers of building a spiritual Greater Hungary". They also regarded Victor Orbán's criticism of the Beneš-decree in the spring of 2002 as an attack against Slovakian statehood. Later, it turned out that behind good neighbourly relations, demonstrated by the reconstruction of the Mária Valéria bridge, they were still worrying about "Hungarian expansion". The entrepreneur - who carried out the reconstruction work on the Hungarian consulate general in Kassa (Kosice), which was opened in 2000, admitted in an interview in 2005 that the secret services had placed bugs on the premises of the foreign representation.

The process that led to László Sólyom's banishment started in 2006. Since then, Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico's favourite pastime is fighting against the extremists of its southern neighbour, in the course of which he is able to regularly refer to Ferenc Gyurcsány mentioning the rapid drift towards fascism of the Hungarian right.

The speech that was not made

The words of László Sólyom were read by Antal Heizer, Hungarian ambassador to Bratislava, at the ceremony in Révkomárom (Komárno)
(details)

"At the time, the 19th century idea of a pure nation-state seemed attractive to Hungarian politicians, too, but we paid a very high price for it. In present-day Europe, depriving a minority of its rights and driving it out of the country is unimaginable."

"Those Slovakian members of parliament who voted for the foundation of the János Selye University in Komárno did a great deal in the interest of both nations. Standing here beside the statue of Saint Stephen, I would now like to express my thanks especially to them. It was this spirit that eased certain periods of Hungarian-Slovakian relations. It would be a good thing if we could return to this spirit. And let me express my wholehearted thanks to the archbishops of Kassa (Kosice) and Nagyszombat (Trnava) for having been present at the holy Mass held yesterday in Saint Stephen's Basilica in Budapest."

"The unlimited use of one's mother tongue is vital for ethnic minorities, not only in private contact, but also in public, in education, in public places and even in official communication. The best European practice is well-known - the status of the Swedish language in Finland, of German in that part of Belgium which is inhabited by Germans, or the possibility of regional official languages. And there are more moderate, but binding legal guarantees. However, I shall appeal once more to (your) understanding and goodwill."

The next step

In the past few days, several possibilities have arisen as potential Hungarian answers to László Sólyom's expulsion.

Boycott: Initiated by Magyar Hírlap (right-leaning daily), the government would hardly support it.

Recalling the ambassador: Permanent recalling is quite rare, as for the expulsion of another country's diplomat at consul general/ambassador level, that is only typical of countries at war (in 1988, Nicolae Ceauşescu ordered the Hungarian consul general in Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca) out of the country because of a demonstration for Transylvania, held in Budapest). The temporary recalling of an ambassador is a more usual tool: it is a serious signal if a country is only represented by a chargé d'affaires in a neighbouring country.

Freezing of diplomatic relations: When there is a conflict between two states, it can be an important sign when not only political meetings, but also expert committees and talks between lower level officials are cancelled. The Slovakian partner insists on these meetings, this is how it wishes to demonstrate to the outside world that relations are normal.

Using international pressure: It seems that Hungarian parties are resorting to this measure. In September, a Hungarian delegation of four parties is to travel to Brussels, and one of the main topics of their talks will be Slovakian politics. The strength of the joint action is weakened by the fact that when talking to the press, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Balázs, stressed the responsibility of the head of state.