2009-08-31 | Mariusz Bocian

Bratislava's decision to stop the Hungarian president László Sólyom from visiting Slovakia on 21 August has caused a further souring of relations between the two states. The origins of the Slovak-Hungarian dispute are historical and political as well as social and economic in nature, and both sides have been using the conflict for the purposes of their internal politics. In the context of the approaching parliamentary elections, the conflict will most probably continue to escalate.
President Sólyom was supposed to pay an unofficial visit to the border town of Komarno in connection with the Hungarian minority in Slovakia (approximately 500 thousand people, accounting for nearly 10% of the population of Slovakia) celebrating the Hungarian national holiday. He was stopped on the border by the Slovak authorities who claimed his visit would be a provocation as it coincided with the anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968 in which Hungarian soldiers also took part. (The Slovak authorities had been informed about the date of the visit two months previously.)

The Hungarian minority issue

The incident is part of a process whereby the relations between Bratislava and Budapest have been deteriorating since 2006, with a culmination in 2008. At the core of the conflict lies the status of the Hungarian minority, large groups of which inhabit the border areas of Slovakia. The populist leaders of Slovakia have been accusing the political representation of the Hungarian minority of seeking broad territorial autonomy for the areas inhabited by the Hungarians and of being supported in these efforts by Budapest and by radical nationalist groups. The Hungarian minority organisations and Hungarian politicians, on the other hand, have accused Bratislava of limiting the rights of and discriminating against the Hungarians by, for example, distributing EU funds in an unfavourable manner or introducing certain modifications to school books. However, what displeased the Hungarians most was the adoption, on 30 June, of an amendment to the Act on the protection of the state language by the Slovak parliament, which introduced the requirement to use the Slovak language in public institutions. In protest against the amendment, the Hungarian PM Gordon Bajnai cancelled the invitation for the Slovak head of government, who was to visit Budapest in early July (it would have been the first visit to be paid by a Slovak prime minister to Hungary in several years).

Political and economic sources of the crisis

Apart from historical issues, the reasons for the souring of Slovak-Hungarian relations also include the political, economic and social situation in the two countries. In Hungary, the activity and popularity of radical nationalist political groups have risen noticeably as a result of the long economic decline and the political crisis. In Slovakia, the conflict broke out when the populist cabinet of Robert Fico, created by his Smer party with two anti-Hungarian groups, the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) and the authoritarian People's Party - Movement for Slovakia, (HZDS), took office in 2006. The Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK), which had been the member of government coalitions for eight years, then found itself in the opposition, as a result of which it became radicalised.
Facing the 2008 economic crisis the Fico government started to increasingly resort to the 'Hungarian threat issue' as a replacement subject used to conceal current economic problems and corruption scandals. Prime minister Fico has also been playing the nationalist card in order to take over Slovakia's most radical electorate associated with the SNS. On the Hungarian side, the nationalist forces gathered around the extreme right Jobbik, a party which gained nearly 15 percent of votes in the elections to the European Parliament this June, and, to a smaller extent, the Fidesz, are the greatest beneficiaries of the escalating conflict.

Conclusion

The escalation of the dispute between Slovakia and Hungary has gone so far that no improvement of the situation should be expected in the medium term. It is more probable that Slovak-Hungarian relations will continue to deteriorate. A negative scenario is even more probable given the election calendars in Hungary and Slovakia. Parliamentary elections are taking place in both countries in the first half of 2010 (in April/May and in June, respectively). It should be expected that national issues and themes will dominate the election campaign, and the expected results of the elections are unlikely to improve the situation - according to the polls, PM Fico will stay in power in Slovakia and the right-wing Fidesz will win in Hungary.

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