HUNGARY – Newly elected Hungarian leader Peter Magyar ignited bilateral tensions in his first call with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on April 21, conditioning cooperation on Slovakia repealing laws criminalizing challenges to the post-World War II Benes Decrees that stripped ethnic Hungarians of property and citizenship under collective guilt.
The decrees, enacted by Czechoslovakia’s Edvard Benes, targeted ethnic Germans and Hungarians,9% of Slovakia’s 5.5 million for alleged wartime collaboration. Fico’s leftist-nationalist government toughened enforcement last year, making denial a crime. While Viktor Orban downplayed it, Magyar elevated minority rights during his April 12 landslide campaign.
“I told him clearly that we would be able to negotiate on any policy issue if we received a guarantee that Slovakia would repeal the legislation that threatens Hungarians living in Slovakia with imprisonment,” Magyar told Fico, also opposing future land confiscations. Fico countered that relations had been smooth, prioritizing energy ties amid shared Russian oil/gas reliance and a Ukraine pipeline row.
Fico noted irreconcilable stances, eyeing an EU summit meet before bilateral talks. Magyar aims to form Hungary’s government by mid-May.