- Pressemeddelelser
The annual FUEN Seminar of the Working Group Slavic Minorities will take place between 18th-21st October 2018 in Mlynky / Pilisszentkereszt, Hungary. It is organised by the FUEN in cooperation with its member organisation Celoštátna slovenská samošpráva v Maďarsku (CSSM).
For the second time after 2009, the Slovak minority in Hungary is hosting the Seminar of the Slavic Minorities, which is a good opportunity to present their community and structures.
The Seminar will focus on the use of minority languages in the public sphere and supportive measures that could lead to an improvement of the current situation. “We want to learn more about the system of minority self-government and how the Slovak minority in Hungary is implementing it. This system might be appealing to many other Slavic minorities in Europe”, stated Mr. Bernhard Ziesch, FUEN Vice President. More than thirty participants from ten countries will exchange their views and discuss common solutions for the improvement of the local situations and to strengthen the cooperation on the European scale.
The official opening of the Seminar will be hosted by Mr. Antal Paulik, Spokesman of the Slovak Minority in the Hungarian Parliament, and will take place in the Hungarian Parliament, where also Mr. Loránt Vincze, FUEN President, Mr. Miklós Soltész, Secretary of State, Ms. Erzsébet Hollerné Racskó, CSSM President and Mr. Imre Ritter, parliamentarian Spokesman of Minorities in Hungary will join, together with the Spokesmen of other minorities in Hungary. This offers a great opportunity for the members of the Working Group of Slavic Minorities to discuss and exchange their views with the stakeholders at the highest political level. Furthermore, there will be visits to the Slovak school and the Slovak institutions in Budapest, where the self-government system will be presented in practice. The Working Group of the Slavic Minorities will also hold its regular meeting to discuss proposals for future projects and meetings.
Background information: The ancestors of the Slovaks living on today’s Hungarian territory arrived in the areas destroyed and depopulated during the Turkish rule in several waves since the late 17th century from the overpopulated counties of Upper Hungary.
The parliamentary adoption of the Act on the Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities in 1993 opened a new chapter in the life of minorities in Hungary, including the Slovak minority. The most important change was the creation of the system of minority self-government, the radically new legal rights of these local, national, and – eventually – county-level bodies, their steadily growing professional activity, and the guaranteed – albeit limited – budgetary support they receive. In this improved environment, the cooperation of Slovak self-governments and NGOs helped to reinvigorate the Slovak community to the extent that the number of people claiming to be Slovak during the 2011 census rose by almost 70 per cent to 17,692.
Thanks to the legal and financial guarantees provided in Hungary, the National Slovak Self-Government currently runs a total of 10 institutions including its own office, a company and a public service foundation. Slovakia provides the self-government with significant diplomatic, technical and financial support. Furthermore, it has established a close cooperation with the organizations of Slovaks living in Romania and Vojvodina, with the World Federation of Slovaks Living Outside Slovakia, and the Federal Union of European Minorities to help the descendants of Slovak settlers preserve, enrich and pass on their culture in Hungary.
