Letter to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the States of the Schengen Area

In the European Union, Romania's accession to the Schengen Area is on the agenda. As Romanian citizens, we pay close attention to the related events, and specifically to the opinions of Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden abstaining or rejecting the accession. Although the Hungarian national community in Romania is interested in the country's accession to the Schengen Area, at the same time we accept the reservations of these states with great understanding. We believe that all member states of the Schengen Area should be aware of the two-faced behavior that characterizes Romania's attitude towards international and community law in the last thirty years.

On March 10 of each year, we present the Gábor Áron Award for the previous year. This year's awards care tied to last year’s greatest international success, which rightly bore the motto of the Szekler National Council: For Szeklerland we mobilize Europe! At the proposal of the President of the Szekler National Council, it has been decided that the following individuals will receive the Award this year:

Yesterday, on 20 December 2021, the verification of the signatures of the European Citizens' Initiative for the Equality of the Regions and the Sustainability of Regional Cultures was completed. The organizers have been informed by the Hungarian Elections Committee that the Decision, according to which 826,826 of the 901,758 signatures are valid, with the certification included within, has come into force. Two days prior, reports on the number of valid signatures were received from Portugal and Cyprus as well, and with this, the table of signatures from all 27 EU Member States, which is part of this notice, is complete.

Esteemed Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Radu Cristescu, a Member of the Romanian Parliament from the governing party, made inadmissible statements in his speech that were contrary to Romania’s membership of the European Union and, in our view, go against Romania’s foreign policy.

In our address, „Latvia Has Fallen”, published on our community page on September 16 this year, we shared the bad news that the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Latvia validated only 5395 statements of support, leading to Latvia dropping out of the eleven states, where the number of statements of support for the citizens’ initiative for national regions exceeded the lower threshold. We also indicated that we had asked the competent Latvian authorities for further information, and were considering a way to pursue legal remedy. On September 21 2021, we received a detailed, precise and correct response from the Central Election Commission. Their response lists the different categories of invalidated statements of support, including 775 from supporters who reside in Latvia but do not have Latvian citizenship. Validating these statements, would have been sufficient for the threshold to be reached.

                        Latgale (Eastern Latvia)

Conversation with Izsák Balázs, President of the Szekler National Council

On 22 June 2021, the Spanish government passed a decision to release the imprisoned Catalan politicians. This decision is called partial pardon, which means the remainder of their prison sentences is erased, they are however barred from public affairs.

Jens Stoltenberg warned NATO members and the whole world of a new danger: the rapprochement of Moscow and Beijing. According to the Secretary-General, the North Atlantic Organization applies a dual method of approach to Russia: intimidation and dialogue.

The European citizens’ initiative (ECI) "Cohesion policy for the equality of regions and sustainability of regional cultures" has gathered over 1.4 million signatures and has very good chances of becoming the 7th successful ECI in the history of this still relatively new legal tool. As the deputy (substitute) representative of the organising citizens committee of this ECI, in this article I hope to share some of my views on the prerequisites for organising a successful ECI.

Minden emlékezésnek az ad értelmet, ha egy közösség – felmérve az elmúlt idők történelmi tanulságait – újabb célokat fogalmaz meg. Ha a visszatekintés emelkedett pillanata egyben alkalom a jövőtervezésre. Ma Trianonra, a trianoni békediktátumra emlékezünk. Száz egy évvel ezelőtt e diktátum következtében terjesztette ki Románia állami fennhatóságát Erdélyre és ezen belül Székelyföldre is. Százegy évvel ezelőtt veszítette el Magyarország jövőformáló képességét, döntéshozó jogát az elszakított országrészek fölött. Nézzük meg hogy ez pontosan mit is jelent ma. A lehetséges válaszok sorából egyet fogok kiragadni: az Európai Unió költségvetésében és az újjáépítési alapban Magyarország mostani népességével arányosan részesedik. Az Erdélyt, Székelyföldet megillető kohéziós és újjáépítési alap Romániát illeti.

According to Izsák Balázs, the slogan „We mobilize Europe for Szeklerland!“, used since 2013 can now be put in past tense. The President of the Szekler National Council (SZNT) spoke about this at a press conference held in Sepsiszentgyörgy on Friday with the occasion of the midnight closing of the collection of signatures in support of the European Citizens' Initiative on national regions.

The European Commission has formulated a number of questions for its interactive conference scheduled for 28 April. Below are answers to these questions by Izsák Balázs, representative of the citizens' committee of the citizens' initiative for national regions.

On 8 March, the European Parliament will pronounce in plenary session on suspending the right of immunity of three Catalan politicians, Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comin and Clara Ponsati, the representatives of JUNTS Per Europa. This decision takes place after the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs has succumbed to pressure from Spain and accepted the request for the suspension of immunity.

Today, on the 25^th of October, on the Day of Szekler Autonomy we Szeklers – together with other communities standing in solidarity with us – convene in order to repeatedly assert our demand for the territorial autonomy of Szeklerland.

The magnitude of this demand, which is based on international law, is larger this year than it was a year ago. The European citizens’ initiative of the Szekler National Council has received over one and a quarter of a million supporting signatures across Europe. The population of our kin-state, Hungary, is fully united behind the initiative, together with other Hungarian minority communities. The signature collection process, which is still open, attracts more- and more supporters from Spain, mainly Catalans, and Basques, and the numbers of supporting signatures are also going up in Sweden, thanks to the Sami communities, and the local Hungarian diaspora.

After Veneto and Silesia, we are putting Szeklerland in the spotlight this month. Attila Dabis is also on the speakers' list of the ICEC conference in the European Parliament postponed to 2021.

Most of our readers may scratch their hair when hearing about Szeklerland. Time for an insightful interview.