2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs

The Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006 were a series of ethnic and diplomatic affairs between Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

and Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

. Although the rights of the Hungarians living in Slovakia are protected by international law, a chain of incidents happened in the summer of 2006. None of these events was endorsed by Slovakia's government and both Bratislava and Budapest tried to cool down the tense situation.

The "tour guide affair"

The "tour guide affair" in May 2006 caused tensions between the diplomatic relations of Slovakia and Hungary. Two history teachers of a Hungarian student group from Szekszárd

Szekszárd

Szekszárd is a city in Hungary and the capital of Tolna county. By population, Szekszárd is the smallest county capital in Hungary; by area, it is the second smallest -Location:...

were interrogated by the Slovak police in Bratislava

Bratislava

Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...

under the charge of working as an illegal tourist guide (i.e. acting as a guide without having a guide license). The teachers claim that they explained their students the role of the Bratislava/Pozsony Cathedral in Hungarian history. Although the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked for an official apology from his Slovak colleague, this was refused, but as it later turned out, there was no legislation enforcing a guide license for tour guiding in Bratislava/Pozsony at the time.

Flag burning

The situation escalated further after the parliamentary elections in June 2006

Slovak parliamentary election, 2006

The 2006 parliamentary elections in Slovakia took place on Saturday June 17, 2006. The voters selected 150 representatives for the National Council of the Slovak Republic. The highest number of seats, 50, was won by left-wing party Direction - Social Democracy led by Robert Fico. In total, six...

, after which the party of the Hungarian minority SMK

Party of the Hungarian Coalition

The Party of the Hungarian Coalition, officially registered under the compound name Strana maďarskej koalície – Magyar Koalíció Pártja, is a political party in Slovakia, for the ethnic Hungarian minority...

was not invited into the new government coalition. After a series of bitter comments from both sides, a short movie presumably depicting a group of Slovak nationalists instigating against the Hungarian minority by burning the Hungarian flag

Flag of Hungary

The flag of Hungary is a horizontal tricolour of red, white and green. In this exact form, it has been the official flag of Hungary since October 1, 1957.-Origin:...

appeared on YouTube.com

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

, which at the day, when it has been announced, it has been removed from YouTube due to terms of use violation. A day later, anti-Slovak graffiti appeared on Slovakia's embassy in Budapest.

Ethnic conflicts

In August 2006 in a few days time the following incidents were reported: In Komárno

Komárno

Komárno is a town in Slovakia at the confluence of the Danube and the Váh rivers. Komárno was formed from part of a historical town in Hungary situated on both banks of the Danube. Following World War I, the border of the newly created Czechoslovakia cut the historical, unified town in half,...

a man was severely beaten because he spoke Hungarian on the street. In the smaller towns of southern Slovakia a woman was allegedly harassed by the hospital staff because of the same reason. This was reported from Nové Zámky

Nové Zámky

Nové Zámky is a town in southwestern Slovakia.-Geography:The town is located on the Danubian Lowland, on the Nitra River, at an altitude of 119 metres. It is located around 100 km from Bratislava and around 25 km from the Hungarian border. It is a road and railway hub of southern...

, Šaľa

Sala

- Geography :* Sala Municipality, Sweden - a municipality in Sweden* Sala, Sweden - a city in Sweden, seat of Sala Municipality* Sala municipality, Latvia - a municipality in Latvia* Sala, Latvia - a village in Latvia, an administrative centre of Sala municipality...

and Veľký Krtíš

Velký Krtíš

Veľký Krtíš is a town in southern Slovakia, situated in the historical Novohrad region. The town's most important economic sectors are mining and agriculture.-History:...

. In Nové Zámky a graffiti saying "Hungarians (should go) to the other side of Danube" appeared on a Hungarian family house. In Bratislava, the statue of Sándor Petőfi

Sándor Petofi

Sándor Petőfi , was a Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary. He is considered as Hungary's national poet and he was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848...

, the popular Hungarian poet, was damaged on August 24, which has happened many times in the past decades.. According to Béla Bugár

Béla Bugár

is a Slovak politician of Hungarian ethnicity. He is a member of the Slovak parliament since 1992, briefly serving as its acting Speaker in 2006. He is the leader of the political party Most-Híd....

, a politician of the SMK, such incidents weren’t typical in the past 8 years (when his SMK was in the government), and the Slovak government has to take seriously the worsening ethnic tensions.

After these incidents another film was uploaded to the Internet, which was made in April at a Slovakian second division football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

match between Slovan

Slovan

Slovan, meaning "Slav" in English, may refer to one of the following sports teams:*FC Slovan Liberec, Czech football club*HC Slovan Ústečtí Lvi, Czech ice-hockey club*ŠK Slovan Bratislava, Slovak football club*HC Slovan Bratislava, Slovak ice-hockey club...

and Dunajská Streda

Dunajská Streda

Dunajská Streda is a town in southern Slovakia . Dunajská Streda is the most important town of the Žitný ostrov region. It has a Hungarian ethnic majority and its population is 23,562 -Name:...

, showing a Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

map for some seconds, then it was creased and savaged, then started hailing Jan Slota and shouted "101% anti-Hungarian", "Slovakia is the Slovak's" and several fascist

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

slogans. The attempt by the Hungarian diplomacy to delete it from the Internet was successful, but soon Slovak football fans protested against local Hungarians in Bratislava(Pozsony) with slogans: "Fucking Hungarians go home!" . After that there was an anti-Slovak protest as a response by football fans in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

(they said "Fucking Slovakia", "Slovaks, you will always remain our slaves", "Slota

Ján Slota

Ján Slota is the co-founder and President of the Slovak National Party, an extremist nationalist party. Slota as the leader of SNS entered into a coalition with Robert Fico's Smer in 2006...

must die" ), six protesters were arrested. On August 25 an ethnic Hungarian female university student called Hedvig Malina

Hedvig Malina

Hedvig Malina is an ethnic Hungarian student from Horné Mýto , Slovakia, who was physically assaulted allegedly in a hate crime incident. Her case represents a highly controversial and debated issue of Hungarian-Slovak relations.-Claim of violence:...

was severely beaten and the statements "SK (probably means Slovakia) without parasites!", "Hungarians to the other side of the Danube!" was written on her clothes in the town of Nitra

Nitra

Nitra is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. With a population of about 83,572, it is the fifth largest city in Slovakia. Nitra is also one of the oldest cities in Slovakia and the country's earliest political and cultural center...

. On September 12, the police concluded that this was a staged attack what the girl denied. According to Új Szó

Új Szó

Új Szó is a Hungarian language only daily newspaper published in Bratislava, Slovakia. It also publishes a weekly Sunday supplement titled Vasárnap .-History:The Új Szó was established by a party order on December 1, 1948...

, some pictures and more evidence was found and attempted to pass to the local police about the incident, but they refused to take them.

According to this, a bit later, on a Banská Bystrica

Banská Bystrica

Banská Bystrica is a key city in central Slovakia located on the Hron River in a long and wide valley encircled by the mountain chains of the Low Tatras, the Veľká Fatra, and the Kremnica Mountains. With 81,281 inhabitants, Banská Bystrica is the sixth most populous municipality in Slovakia...

football match a transparent was handed out, with "Death to the Hungarians!" written on it.

On 26 August a 19 year old Hungarian man was seriously beaten in Sladkovičovo

Sládkovicovo

Sládkovičovo is a town in the Galanta District, Trnava Region in southwestern Slovakia.-Geography:It is located on the Danubian Lowland, in the region known as Dolné Považie on the Dudváh river, around 45 km east of Slovak capital Bratislava and 8 km from district seat...

. According to Slovak sources this had no ethnic background, but was a usual crime. The victim said that before he was beaten the assailants asked him: "Do you know where Ján Slota lives?"

For a response on August 29, the statue of Friedrich Habsburg in Mosonmagyaróvár

Mosonmagyaróvár

Mosonmagyaróvár is a city in Győr-Moson-Sopron county in northwestern Hungary. It lies close to both the Austrian and Slovakian borders and has a population of 30,200 ....

was damaged and an anti-Slovak graffiti appeared there. On August 29-31, several name tables of towns and villages inhabited by the Slovak minority in Hungary were destroyed or damaged.

As a response to this series of attacks, the Slovak Police announced that it would use its special forces to fight political extremists. The deputy prime minister of the Slovak Republic Dušan Čaplovič

Dušan Čaplovič

PhD. Dušan Čaplovič, DrSc. is a Slovak politician, formerly a historian and archaeologist. He is the Deputy Prime Minister for Knowledge Society, European Affairs, Human Rights and Minorities...

officially met with Béla Bugár to discuss the new measures against extremists and he publicly supported SMK-sponsored declaration against the recent violent attacks.
In late August, several Slovak persons (football hooligans having held anti-Hungarian inscriptions) have been sentenced to prison in Slovakia for "inciting ethnic and racial hatred". In addition, police investigations in all the above mentioned cases are in progress.

Slovak authorities promised to take action, but they also accuse Hungarian counterparts of overreacting to these incidents, saying similar accidents do not usually get attention of government.

According to the mainstream Hungarian and Slovak media, this series of incidents was encouraged by the fact that Ján Slota's party joined the ruling coalition government or by his anti-Hungarian statements, described by the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation as ultra-nationalist, made in early summer.

Political affairs and statements

On 26 August Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány

Ferenc Gyurcsány

Ferenc Gyurcsány is a Hungarian politician. He was the sixth Prime Minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009.He was nominated to take that position on 25 August 2004 by the Hungarian Socialist Party , after Péter Medgyessy resigned due to a conflict with the Socialist Party's coalition partner...

said there is a direct connection between the governmental role of Slota's party and the incidents. According to Gyurcsány: "The Ghost is already out of the bottle". Gyurcsány said that guaranteeing the safety of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia is the personal responsibility of Slovakian PM Robert Fico

Robert Fico

Robert Fico served as the Prime Minister of Slovakia from July 4, 2006 to July 8, 2010.He is the leader of the left-wing party Direction – Social Democracy . The party won the parliamentary elections in 2006, receiving approximately 30 percent of the cast votes...

who signed the coalition with Slota. The Slovakian ambassador's deputy in Budapest was called to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he received an official note of protest from the Hungarian Government.

In the last week of August negotiations between the Slovak and Hungarian government somewhat eased the tensions between the two countries. Both Prime Ministers condemned any kind of ethnic violence. On the other hand leading politicians of the Smer, ruling party of the Slovak government, blamed the Party of the Hungarian Coalition

Party of the Hungarian Coalition

for internationally discrediting Slovakia. On 4 September, Boris Zala

Boris Zala

Boris Zala is a Slovak social democratic politician, a member of Slovak parliamentand the current Chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee...

, deputy president of the Smer accused Hungarian minority politicians with disloyalty to Slovakia.

After the Slovakia elections of 2006, the victorious left-wing party, Smer

Direction - Social Democracy

The party Direction – Social Democracy , often abbreviated to Smer, is a centre-left political party in Slovakia. It is led by Robert Fico, who was Prime Minister from 2006 to 2010. It is the largest party in the National Council, with 62 seats....

, formed a coalition with the right-wing nationalist party, SNS

Slovak National Party (current party)

The Slovak National Party is a political party in Slovakia. The party characterizes itself as a socialist, nationalist party based on what it calls the European Christian system of values. However it is sometimes described as ultra-nationalist,...

(Slovak National Party), whose leader, Ján Slota

Ján Slota

Ján Slota is the co-founder and President of the Slovak National Party, an extremist nationalist party. Slota as the leader of SNS entered into a coalition with Robert Fico's Smer in 2006...

, is notorious for anti-Hungarian statements (see Ján Slota

Ján Slota

Ján Slota is the co-founder and President of the Slovak National Party, an extremist nationalist party. Slota as the leader of SNS entered into a coalition with Robert Fico's Smer in 2006...

and ). Ján Slota himself is not in the government (a condition for the inclusion of his party in the government has been that he will not himself be a member of the government). The program of the new government explicitly says that it will maintain the status quo of the minority institutions and rights. The new government, however, refused to distance itself from the extremist statements of Slota on the grounds that he is not a member of the government and his statements are not official.

The "tour guide affair"

Flag burning

Ethnic conflicts

Political affairs and statements

See also