Hongarije verdedigt voornemen controversiële wet op burgerschap voor Hongaren in buitenland (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Hungarian government has defended plans to alter the country's constitution and a new law which enables non-residents to gain Hungarian citizenship.
The two issues join a growing list of controversial topics swirling around Hungary's week-old EU presidency, with a new media authority and various crisis taxes also proving to be hot topics.
Speaking to international press gathered in Budapest on Thursday (6 January) to mark Budapest's takeover of the six-month rotating EU presidency, Prime Minister Viktor Orban i brushed aside the growing concerns saying the new measures were necessary historical corrections.
"We are giving citizenship individually. We do not know how many people will come ... So I would negate any talk of mass citizenship," the leader of the centre-right Fidesz party, which dominates the country's ruling coalition, said.
Adopted by the Hungarian parliament last May, the new citizenship law came into force on 1 January 2011, allowing people living in regions that used to form part of Hungary to apply for citizenship. The move has prompted concern in Slovakia where a large ethnic Hungarian minority resides.
Romania also has a considerable Hungarian community after Budapest found itself on the losing side of WWI, forcing it to cede two-thirds of its territory under the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.
On Wednesday Hungary's Europe minister, Eniko Gyori, said "having several identities is not contradictory". She indicated that 380 Romanians, one Slovakian and 200 Serbian had applied for Hungarian citizenship so far.
Mr Orban suggested the future citizens will gain voting rights in Hungary. "This issue has not been discussed yet," he told journalists. "The general solution is that these people do have the right to vote. Probably at the end of this year the parliament will disucuss this."
The centre-right politician who has courted controversy since he took over last year also denied plans to alter the country's constitution were aimed at weakening the opposition.
Instead the current constitution's Communist heritage meant it needed to be replaced, he argued, together with the requirement for additional deficit and debt breaks.
Economy
The Hungarian government announced on Thursday that it successfully limited the country's 2010 budget deficit to 3.8 percent, as requested by international lenders, with current forecasts showing Budapest will bring its deficit below the EU limit of three percent this year.
Economy minister Gyorgy Matolcsy defended the use of unorthodox economic measures in recent months, including much-criticised crisis taxes on the telecoms, retail and energy sectors, together with a rejection of the austerity measures widely deployed by other EU member states.
Asked whether recent EU-IMF loan recipient Ireland might also gain from an eschewal of more conventional policies, Mr Matolcsy said it was important to "think outside the box" during the current economic crisis.
The Fidesz politician said implementing a new European budgetary semester, a package of EU economic governance reforms and securing a permanent eurozone crisis mechanism were Hungary's top three economic priorities during its time at the EU helm.
He also predicted common eurozone bonds would be become a reality by 2013. "On the Eurobond, at the end of the day we need it," he said, but added that Budapest was in "no hurry" to adopt the euro currency.