"I won't deny that the political game has some reference to the elections. However, while we Hungarians respect the rules, the Romanians and the Slovakians are playing with marked cards. We are giving voice to our justified demands, and it is within this context that we bring up the Romanian issue, evidently in a more concentrated form during the campaign. This is not the first time that I have spoken about this. Eighteen years ago, I wrote a book entitled An expression and what's behind it, about the bloodless ethnic cleansing the Romanians have been carrying out since the Treaty of Trianon. That was when I became their number one public enemy. Although in a hidden, less evident form, a Pan-Romanian, Pan-Orthodox, anti-Hungarian politics still exists, and has resulted in the proportion of ethnic minorities in Transylvania plummeting from the original forty-five percent to a mere twenty percent. The relocation of Moldavians, the colonization politics of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the destruction of the Hungarian education system, the deliberate wasting away of civil servants - these all serve this purpose."

"If the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) is no longer a governing party, it is only natural that its cadres no longer have positions. Calling this ethnic cleansing is going a bit too far, don't you think?"

"If we simply followed party logic, then of course it would be the most natural thing in the world that the people who had been placed in positions through the DAHR have now been removed from office. Now the alliance is being inconsistent by protesting loudly against a practice that it took part in developing. The present situation qualifies? the DAHR, too. In any case, they have come round to the standpoint of autonomous politicians. In our case, what we made clear from the start was that the social presence and public servant mandates of Hungarians should not be subordinated to party politics. Hungarians have individual entitlement to a certain number of positions in proportion to their ethnic ratio, and autonomy would serve this purpose, i.e. the proportions would be secured by law."

"Yes, but the positions would not even have existed if the DAHR had not been a governing party from 1996. And you had always been against the participation of the DAHR."

"This is seemingly true, but in fact the DAHR paid too high a price for the temporary advantages that it gained in exchange for taking part in the government. It put all its eggs in one basket, and this basket toppled over and all the eggs broke - all the Transylvanian Hungarians fell to the floor, so to speak. Let me just add that the governments in which the DAHR participated - for example when they supported the Socialist party from the outside - were not necessarily better than the one that is in power today. That is why it is a bit controversial that the former deputy prime minister, Béla Markó, is now ardently objecting to the cadre policy practice that he formerly deemed acceptable."

"What could the other alternative have been, seeing that the Romanians were not enthusiastic about autonomy? To have demanded autonomy, together with you, and not to have participated in the governments, and not have received a single Hungarian position?"

"In the short term, this argument seems correct, but we must view the events from a distance of twenty years. If we had stood up together, in unison, and bargained for it, we would have succeeded - especially if the foreign policy of Hungary had prescribed it as a pre-condition of Romania's EU accession. It failed, despite the fact that - in the long run - the Hungarian minority can only remain in Romania, where the majority will always outvote it, if it succeeds in getting its rights, duties and conditions of existence regulated by institutional and legal means. The legal background is weak, and that is why we're once again where we were twenty years ago. The present cleansing brings to mind the darkest days of Ceauşescu."

"Is it worth ruining relations - e.g. with the Romanian president Basescu - which have been improving in the past few years, with campaign slogans like this?"

"Relations are not that simple. It was president Traian Basescu who didn't want László Sólyom to travel to Transylvania on March 15th. They probably thought that if they refused to give landing clearance, he wouldn't make the trip. It was very brave of the Hungarian President of the Republic to undertake such a long and tiring trip by car. I personally thanked him for that when I visited him last week. I feel that my standpoint regarding the question of autonomy (which I have always upheld) is justified. It was in 1992 that we published the declaration of autonomy in Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca). We stuck to it, while the DAHR dropped the issue and removed everyone who wasn't willing to follow the misinterpreted party line."

"And yet you are now at the top of the DAHR's List of Candidates (for EP elections). So is the long-awaited Transylvanian Hungarian unity just an appearance for the sake of the elections?"

"Now that the DAHR is no longer a part of the government, it has realized that it can no longer maintain its power with ministerial positions and government funds, which were the basis of its secure position. It needs those 175,000 votes that I managed to get in 2007."

"And couldn't you get those votes on your own this time?"

"If we hadn't joined forces, we would have risked not getting into the European Parliament (both the DAHR candidate and myself). We could not have taken responsibility for having jointly excluded the Hungarians of Transylvania from the European representation of interests. That was the main reason for my having accepted the compilation of a joint list, but we are also thinking of long-term cooperation in the future. The reason we established the Transylvanian Hungarian Conciliation Forum (EMEF) was to clarify the disputed points, and we will discuss all of them after the elections. We have defined as a common goal the fight for community rights based on individual entitlement and ethnic grounds - of course, we have yet to see whether the DAHR will really be a partner in this. In any case, for the duration of the campaign we have put aside all controversial issues and personal differences. The most important thing now is to create a strong Hungarian representation of interests, and with this cooperation, we stand a good chance of acquiring four seats in the European Parliament. Former Upper-Hungary (in present-day Slovakia) can get three seats if Hungarians manage to perform according to their proportion within the population - five years ago they underperformed."

"Do you really think they will perform better this time, now that Slovakian-Hungarian politics is on the verge of falling apart?"

"There's also a circumstance which would otherwise be negative, but from the point of view of the elections, it's opportune. Slovakian nationalism, which is growing stronger, is once again forcing the Hungarian minority to defend itself. So if three Hungarian representatives can get into the EP in Slovakian colours, and four from Transylvania, then together with Hungary's 22 seats, there will be altogether 29 Hungarian representatives in the European Parliament. If we deduct our four seats from the 33 seats that Romania has a right to, that's also 29. Consequently, with the present vote Hungary can become the same size as Romania on the map of Europe. And from then on, we shall have no reason for the political narrow-mindedness with which we belittle ourselves, and which has weakened our chances on the international scene for so long."

"If I understand you correctly, it doesn't really matter whether the citizens of Hungary vote for the Socialists, for Jobbik or for Fidesz; whatever happens, 22 Hungarians will get into the European Parliament."

"Actually, it's not indifferent how many Hungarians are present in the Group of the European People's Party (EPP) in the European Parliament. The Hungarian MPs from former Upper-Hungary and Transylvania will definitely be sitting in the EPP Group. As far as Hungary is concerned, only the Fidesz MPs will definitely belong to the EPP Group. So the more votes Fidesz gets, the greater our chances will be for more Hungarians than Romanians to belong to the EPP Group. In the event that this happens, the question of autonomy can be placed on the agenda, and then the Romanian members of the EPP won't be able to act as arrogantly and cynically as they did in 2007, when they prevented me from becoming a member of the EPP Group."

"Well, it was thanks to them that László Tőkés became a "green" politician. (translator's note: he belongs to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance)."

"I was a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance up till now, but I had absolute freedom regarding political issues. It wouldn't have worked otherwise, for the Greens have one or two extreme views that I could never identify with."

"Should seals be killed, then?"

"No, that's not what I was thinking of, rather their views concerning euthanasia, and a whole set of extremely liberal ideas they have. Formally, this was a forced marriage, one in appearance only. Now that it is over, I'm starting my new mandate within the EPP Group."

"The Hungarian Socialists will be part of the Socialist Group. Will you be partners in the enforcement of common national policy rights?"

"There's a good chance of it happening. From what I've experienced so far in the European Parliament, the Socialist MP Csaba Tabajdi is worth a whole team of minority policy activists - he has always stood up for the protection of Hungarian minorities. And what counted in the Socialist Group was what he stood up for. If he wins a seat, the others won't go against national interests either."

"Am I hearing right? Is László Tőkés campaigning for the Socialists?"

"Not at all. Tabajdi is fourth on the List of Candidates, he's sure to get in. From the point of view of national policy, a small, four-member Hungarian Socialist delegation would be in the best interests of Hungarians. If this is how it turns out, and we do well in Slovakia and Romania, then there will be a Hungarian imperative - especially after a political change in Hungary - to overcome the obstacles preventing the development of an all-Hungarian national policy. So the EP elections at the weekend will be the first step towards the trans-border re-unification of the nation. This is the first opportunity we have had since 2002 to proceed in this direction."