Hungary and the European Union: The political implications of societal security promotion

Abstract

Hungary's constitutional commitment to support kin-nationals beyond its borders (nation policy) has been a central feature of its post-1989 foreign policy and highlights a particularly important national security concern—the societal security of national identity, culture, language and tradition. This article examines Hungary's societal security concerns and the policy methods it utilises, including its EU membership and the promotion of minority rights at the European level, to help combat these concerns. It is suggested that Hungary has found it somewhat difficult to balance its societal security policy objective with internal economic demands on its welfare system and its external foreign policy objective to maintain good neighbourly relations. This article also notes that Hungary's attempts to Europeanise, or rather ‘EU-ise’, minority and ethnic rights issues as a means to enhance societal security for the Hungarian nation has certain political consequences for the EU. This suggests that societal security provision is an issue that cannot be overlooked when trying to understand the longer-term implications of EU eastern enlargement.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Laura Cashman, Mary Heimann, Jon Oldfield and David Smith for their reflections on and suggestions for improving this article. Special thanks also go to Laura Cram for her early guidance and advice on research, developing ideas and writing style, without which this article would never have been written.

Notes

¹‘Article I’, The National Security Strategy of the Republic of Hungary, Resolution No. 2073/2004 (III.31.), 2004, Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, available at: http://www.mfa.gov.hu/kum/en/bal/foreign_policy/security_policy/national_sec_strategy_of_hun.htm, accessed 24 June 2007.

²See footnote 1.

³The population of the Hungarian state is made up of 14 officially recognised ethnic groups; Hungarian, Roma, Bulgarian, Greek, Croatian, Polish, German, Armenian, Romanian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovakian, Ukrainian and Slovenian (National and Ethnic Minorities in Hungary, 24 June 2004, Office for National and Ethnic Minorities in Hungary, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/docs/E.C.12.HUN.3-Annex16.pdf, accessed 22 June 2007).

⁴ The Number of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, Europe and the World, Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad, available at: http://www.hhrf.org/htmh/en/?menuid=08&news020_id=1201, accessed 22 June 2007.

⁵ Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Hungary and Protocol and Declaration, Signed at Trianon, June 4, 1920, available at: http://www.lib.byu.edu/∼rdh/wwi/versa/tri1.htm, accessed 22 June 2007.

⁶ Constitution of Hungary, Article 6.3, available at: http://www.legislationline.org/upload/legislations/cd/86/39b1e5cc4b9b9b6a97c2830f3608.htm, accessed 22 June 2007.

⁷‘Minorities: That Other Europe’, The Economist, 329, 7843, December 1993, p. 18.

⁸Research Analyst with Hungarian Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies, interview with the author, Budapest, 4 April 2003; see also Ieda (2006, p. 198).

⁹The Hungarian Standing Conference (Magyar ÁllandóÉrtekezlet, MÁÉRT) held its first meeting in 1999 (during Viktor Orbán's Fidesz – MDF administration). It had no actual political authority and was primarily intended to allow various groups with an interest in the preservation of Hungarian national identity to come together to discuss and inform the development of various aspects of Hungarian nation policy. It met for seven sessions between 1999 and 2003. As of 2006, Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, declared that the MÁÉRT would no longer meet.

¹⁰‘Hungarians in Voivodina 2004’, Reports on the Situation of Hungarians Living Abroad, Budapest, Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad, p. 20, available at: http://www.hhrf.org/htmh/en/011_voivodina/text015/doc_upload/voivodina2004.pdf, accessed 22 June 2007.

¹¹‘Downplay the Vojvodina Card’, Transitions Online, 82, September 2004, available at: http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLrus/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=82&NrSection=2&NrArticle=12899, accessed 22 June 2007.

¹²‘Serbian Leader Seeks to Play Down Ethnic Tensions in Vojvodina’, RFE/RL Newsline, 8, 172, 9 September 2004, available at: http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2004/09/4-see/see-090904.asp, accessed 24 June 2007.

¹³‘Article III.2.2’, The National Security Strategy, for full details see footnote 1.

¹⁴Key Topics of the Press Conference following the Government session on 10 November 2004 – Passports, Jobs and Financial Support for Hungarians living outside the Country's Borders', HungarianPrime Minister's Office, available at: http://www.meh.hu/english/activities/briefing/20041111_en_shtml?sq=national%20policy, accessed 10 July 2007. See also Weinstein 2004.

¹⁵‘Expanding NATO and the EU: A Hungarian Perspective’, speech given by Laszlo Kovacs at Columbia University, 12 September 2002, Columbia News Video Forum, New York, Office of Public Affairs, Columbia University, available at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/vforum/02/hungarian_perspective/laszloKovas.ram, accessed 25 June 2007.

¹⁶See footnote 13.

¹⁷See footnote 13.

¹⁸ The Laeken Declaration on the Future of the European Union, 2001, available at: http://european-convention.eu.int/pdf/LKNEN.pdf, accessed 24 June 2007.

¹⁹It is important to acknowledge that the Charter on Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU) and the European Convention on Human Rights are two different documents from two separate organisations—the EU and the Council of Europe.

²⁰Minorities expert within Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, interview with the author, 11 November 2002, Budapest.

²¹ Hungary's Renewed Nation Policy, 2005, Hungarian Ministry or Foreign Affairs, Article 1.3, available at: http://www.kulugyminiszterium.hu/kum/en/bal/Archivum/Archives/nation_policy_affairs.htm, accessed 24 June 2007.

²²‘Article III.2.2’, The National Security Strategy, for full details see footnote 1.

²³‘Article III.2.2’, The National Security Strategy, for full details see footnote 1.

²⁴‘Article 4.4’, Hungary's Renewed Nation Policy, for full details see footnote 25.

²⁵‘Speech delivered by József Szájer, Hungary at the European Convention’, 7 February 2003, available at: http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/speeches/9457.pdf, accessed 25 June 2007.

²⁶‘Proposals and initiatives of the Hungarian government regarding the rights of national minorities at EU level'. Government Office for Hungarian Minorities Abroad, available at: http://www.hhrf.org/htmh/en/?menuid=08&news020_id=1146, accessed 6 September 2007.

²⁷‘Hungary to Back “Slimmed-Down” Treaty at EU Summit, says PM’, Hungarian News Agency, 20 June 2007, available at: http://english.mti.hu/default.asp?menu=1&theme=2&cat=25&newsid=241731, accessed 21 June 2007.

²⁸‘Hungary Implies Threat of Vetoing Serbia's EU Membership’, Radio Kossuth, 10 September 2004, BBC Monitoring Service, 13 September 2004.

²⁹ Népszabadság, 8 September 2004, p. 3.

³⁰‘Hungary to Raise Issue of Ethnic Violence in Serbia at EU Meeting’, AFP Newswire Report, 8 September 2004, available via EU Business at: http://www.eubusiness.com/Hungary/040908170314.qx86y2lr, accessed 10 June 2007.

³¹ Joint Motion for a Resolution on the Harassment of Minorities in Vojvodina, 16 September 2004, European Parliament, 16 September 2004, available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do;jsessionid=8F5E72F0A45D1983C798C727F23C8766.node1?language=EN&pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+PRESS+DN-20040916-1+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN#SECTION8, accessed 25 June 2007.

³²‘EU Commissioner for Enlargement Warns Belgrade’, 12 October 2005, Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, available at: http://www.hhrf.org/hhrf/index_en.php?oldal=128, accessed 25 June 2007.

³³‘Serbia: Vojvodina Should be Granted Wider Autonomy, Says Senior EU Official’, HINA News Agency, 1 September 2006, BBC Monitoring Service, 1 September 2006.

³⁴A state is formally considered to be a candidate for EU membership only once it has officially applied to join the EU and the EU has agreed to accept it as a future member dependent on their adoption of and adherence to the EU's body of law—acquis communautaire. Formal accession negotiations do not need to have opened. As of January 2007 the only official candidates for EU membership are Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia.

³⁵ Népszabadság, 17 September 2004, p. 3.

³⁶‘PES President backs Hungarian PM on Slovak Attacks’, Party of European Socialists, 30 August 2006, available at: http://www.pes.org/content/view/624/90, accessed 25 June 2007.

³⁷‘Barroso tells Slovak Premier EU Worries about Minorities in Slovakia’, TA3 TV News Report, 7 September 2006, BBC Monitoring Service, 7 September 2006. See also: ‘European Socialists back Hungarian Premier in Row with Slovak Cabinet’, Kossuth Radio, 30 August 2006, BBC Monitoring Service, 30 August 2006.

³⁸‘Resolution Adopted by the PES Presidency’, Party of European Socialists, 12 October 2006, available at: http://www.pes.org/downloads/PES_resolution_on_SMER_EN.pdf, accessed 25 June 2007.

³⁹‘Belgrade Daily Sums Up Hungarian, Serbian Reaction to Vojvodina Ethnic Tension’, Blic, 10 September 2004, p. 2, BBC Monitoring Service, 12 September 2004.

⁴⁰‘Visegrad Group's Jubilee: Hungarian, Slovak Premiers Refuse to Meet’, Kossuth Radio, 10 October 2006, BBC Monitoring Service, 10 October 2006.

⁴¹‘Poland Seeks EU Help on Belarus’, BBC News, 30 July 2005, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4730095.stm, accessed 24 June 2007. See also, Dempsey (2005).

⁴² Moscow Times, 16 August 2005, p. 4.

⁴³ European Parliament Resolution of 24 May 2007 on Estonia[P6_TA-PROV(2007)0215], 24 May 2007, Strasbourg, available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2007-0215&language=EN&ring=B6-2007-0220, accessed 25 June 2007. See also: ‘EU – Russia Talks Deadlocked’, BBC News Video, 18 May 2007, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6670000/newsid_6670600/6670617.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm, accessed 25 June 2007.