Suchergebnisse

It was only recently, in the early 2000's, that the national councils were formed as institutions of policy making. The present paper concerns the second election of the national councils, which was held in the traditional way and not by means of electors. In 2010, the primary issue was whether and to what extent the institution is considered legitimate by majority of the Hungarians in Serbia. However, mitigating the collective social inequities of Hungarians in Serbia/Voivodina was not empha-sized. This inequity is partly due to the political deep structure of the representational form of rule. In other words, the dispute on the working of the MNT paralleled the current challenges of the Hungarian party-political system in Voivodina. The actual possibilities of minority policy making or the sensibly discussable circumstances of a given policy area were not really included. The discourse belonged to the dimension of politics rather than that of policies. Even the most skilled intellectuals were unaware of the ways how interests can be institutionalized through policy making. The debate addressed the elections of the MNT and not its procedures of functioning/competence/decision. The 2010 election facilitated the progress in the legality and legitimacy of the body but it also pointed out that, due to the short-term and tactical workings of daily political struggles, the political possibilities and articulations of minority interests will continue to be kept in the background.

The study undertakes to clarify some basic issues that have been erroneously recorded in the public consciousness, to make a kind of confrontation in order to take the initial steps of improving the Romanian−Hungarian relationship. In order to achieve the above goal and basic thesis, it is a primary task to illuminate and banish the mistakes and myths recorded in the public consciousness from both sides. In this context, it is revealed that neither the topos of the "millennial Hungarian oppression" simplified to the extreme nor the thesis of the "slow − anti-Hungarian − Romanian national occupation" can be held. In the interest of constructive dialogue, it is worth returning to the position that prevailed in the Hungarian reform era, and even at the time of the unification of the Romanian states, according to which the interdependence and commonality of destiny of the two peoples is a real and common path. To this end, the study uses legal history to present the original meaning of nationalism, the majority and minority arguments made during the drafting of the Hungarian Nationality Act of 1868, the models that can be interpreted in the majority−minority relationship, and the relationship of the two states to these models then and in the present day. In this context, the constitutional conceptions of Hungary and Romania are analysed in connection with the minority issue with the intention to prove the legitimacy of the needs of the Hungarian minority. The basic premise of the study in this area is that if a minority demand was legitimate from the Hungarian side within the Hungarian state, then the argumentum a simile from the Hungarian side is necessarily legitimate within the Romanian state.