THE CHAIRMAN of the non-parliamentary Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) József Berényi, who announced in early January 2011 that he had applied for Hungarian citizenship under new rules passed in Budapest that provoked a controversy in bilateral relations between the two countries, is now refusing to confirm whether or not he has been granted Hungarian citizenship, the SITA newswire reported.
Currently, Slovak law states that any citizen who acquires the citizenship of another state, unless by birth or marriage, will be stripped of his or her Slovak citizenship.
Berényi criticised the government for not resolving the dual citizenship controversy with Hungary sooner.
The latest attempts to resolve the issue are apparently deadlocked.
The Slovak government drafted an inter-state contract to govern the mutual practice of granting citizenship, but the media has reported that the Hungarian government has yet to respond to the draft.
The ruling coalition failed to reach agreement on issues surrounding dual citizenship and agreed that no proposal would be put forward without an agreement by all participating parties.
