The Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest was summoned, on Tuesday, to the HQs of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), by Minister Bogdan Aurescu, to communicate the Romanian state’s disapproval of the gesture made by the president of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Parliament in Budapest, Nemeth Zsolt, who requested the Szekler flag-raising in Romania.
“The Szekler flag will fly on the facade of Hungarian public institutions until the Romanian state allows its free use throughout the territory of Romania! Come on, Szeklers! Let’s go to Transylvania!”, Zsolt Nemeth posted on Facebook.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly disapproves of the comments of the President of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Hungarian Parliament, published yesterday, February 6, 2023, on his Facebook page, regarding the alleged restriction by Romania of the right to fly the flag of the so-called Szeklerland. The Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest was summoned, this morning, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, to the headquarters of the Romanian MAE, in order to communicate the position of the Romanian side.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlights, in this context, the fact that the legal order in Romania enshrines the right of persons belonging to all 20 national minorities to use their specific symbols in private, as well as in public, within specific cultural and religious manifestations” , reads a MFA press release.
“Regarding the sign of the so-called Szekler land, in Romania there is no administrative-territorial unit with this name and therefore no right to any specific official sign. At the same time, any administrative-territorial authority in Romania has the right to establish its own signs, which must be representative of the entire population resident in that administrative-territorial unit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly reiterates the call for restraint in public statements and reminds the expectation of the Romanian side that the Hungarian officials act with responsibility in the logic of the strategic relationship between the two states, the Basic Political Treaty of 1996 and in the desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation in all fields of interest, for the benefit of all Romanian and Hungarian citizens, regardless of ethnicity”, the Romanian MFA also says.