For ethnic Hungarians living in Transylvania, Romania, the results of the Hungarian parliamentary elections may have been “traumatic,” but they must now look to the future with a new Hungarian government, wrote Barna Botond Bíró, the president of the Harghita county self-government, in a lengthy Facebook post.
The politician leading the Hungarian-majority Transylvanian county recounted the referendum on dual citizenship back in December 2004, which was opposed by then Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and failed. Viktor Orbán and Fidesz remedied this after taking power in 2010, passing a landmark law permitting simplified naturalization for ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries, allowing dual citizenship without residency.
“That is why the relationship with Viktor Orbán in Transylvania is still not the same as in Hungary,” Bíró said. The past 16 years for ethnic Hungarians in this region have been “a defining era of national politics: citizenship, symbolic reparations, institution-building, and a series of church, educational, cultural and community support,” Biró wrote.
As Remix News wrote before the election, there were ample fears from Romania’s ethnic Hungarian minority of a scenario that saw Péter Magyar victorious.
“All of this has gone beyond the logic of short-term political cycles and has become a public policy that is difficult to reverse, treating the Hungarian communities of the Carpathian Basin increasingly in a unified space. This has created not only political loyalty, but also a strong emotional bond,” he continued in his post.
Now, Hungarians in Transylvania, Biró says, are left wondering who will represent their interests, and it is imperative that they work with the new government in Budapest under Péter Magyar.
“This is not treason. This is duty,” he emphasized.
“The RMDSZ received its mandate from the Hungarian community in Transylvania, and it is primarily responsible to this community. It would be treason if, out of resentment, party loyalty or past loyalty, it did not sit down with the new Hungarian government, which will make the national policy decisions of the coming years. It would be treason if we subordinated the future of Hungarian schools, churches, cultural institutions and community affairs in Transylvania to momentary emotions,” Bíró wrote in his post.
He assessed that one of the keys to the political success of the Transylvanian Hungarian community has always been its ability to show unity on vital issues. “As a minority community, we cannot afford the luxury of extreme division. The standard of political action is not ideological purity, but the community interest: preserving identity, maintaining institutions, and ensuring the conditions for demographic and economic strengthening,” he said.
He believed that the Hungarian representation in Transylvania “will not collapse” because of the change of government in Hungary, as Transylvania has always been a space where different political and cultural logics met, and it has organized its life in a unique way in this environment.
Biró emphasized the importance of not allowing gratitude to become “political blindness.”
“You can give thanks for the past and at the same time discuss the future. This is not a cloak-and-dagger, but responsible community service,” said Biró.
