Members of the newly established party MOST-HID, which features five former members of the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) are certain that application of the amended language law may have a negative impact on the use of languages of ethnic minorities, the SITA newswire wrote.
“Therefore we welcome the interest of the OCSE High Commissioner in this issue and his active and expert approach in helping to resolve this sensitive problem; which may not be said about the Slovak government, that should above all consult the solution of this matter with those it concerns, and not speak about us without us,” the party’s press release said.
The press release also said that since the opinion expressed by the OCSE commissioner in the English language has been interpreted in different ways, MOST-HID decided to have the commissioner's opinion translated into both the Hungarian and Slovak languages and has published it on its website.
“With regard to statements of Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák on this topic, we think that when speaking about issues of national minorities, he should express a greater amount of diplomacy in the future, in the way we were used to it during his service in the ethnically-mixed, and shattered by ethnic wars, Balkans,” the press release said, as quoted by SITA. On July 24, Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák wrote for the EU Observer web portal that the campaign against the amended State Language Act was burdening Slovak-Hungarian relations.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
