Slovakia, Hungary step up efforts to improve fraught relations[fr][de] 

The overdue meeting between Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak and his Hungarian counterpart Peter Balazs in the Slovenian town of Bled was set to pave the way for a possible meeting between the Slovak and Hungarian premiers, Robert Fico and Gordon Bajnai respectively, and to discuss solutions to worsening bilateral relations. 

"It was not an easy conversation," Lajcak admitted after the meeting, the outcome of which remains unknown. The meeting would, according to Lajcak, put relations between the two countries back on a regular and standardised footing. Lajcak also reportedly emphasised that the law was not intended to discriminate against the Hungarian ethnic minority and that Slovakia had nothing to hide regarding its implementation, the Slovak ministry's spokesman Peter Stano told the Hungarian wire service, MTI. 

The two ministers also reportedly discussed strengthening current bilateral fora such as mixed commissions and co-operation between parliamentary committees, Stano added. 

The meeting on Sunday is long overdue as earlier meetings were cancelled due to worsening relations. A renewal of dialogue between the Fico and Bajnai was tabled for July, but a row broke out which put even greater distance between the two neighbouring countries. 

The row has spilled over into intellectual circles worldwide as a joint statement issued by clergymen, intellectuals and academics summoned European public opinion and the decision-makers of Europe and the North Atlantic to oppose the law, in a bid to prevent relations between the two countries from spiralling out of control. 

The statement criticised the law as a contravention of human rights and urged "freedom-loving people" to support their protest against the incoming legislation. "It is a birthright of all people to communicate with others who speak the same language in their common tongue." 

"We believe in a Europe whose citizens can live freely, free of fear and with no impingements on their human dignity," the statement added. 

Signatories to the statement include the former and current presidents of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Jozsef Palinkas and E. Szilveszter Vizi, Roman Catholic Archbishop Balazs Babel and Calvinist Bishop, Istvan Bogardi Szabo, Australian historian Ann Major, American history professor Charles Ingrao of Purdue University, Israeli poet Yaakov Barzilai and American literature professor Ivan Sanders of Columbia University. 

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Balázs told Euractiv Germany that the language row smacks of a similar dispute in Germany's constitutional court. France and Canada have had similar experiences with the preservation of national languages too. In both countries, there were statutory fines enforcing the use of French. And in both cases, the High Courts asked the parliaments to strike a balance between protecting a national language and protecting the rights of the individual to freedom of expression and belief. 

The Constitutional Council of the French Republic, the Conseil Constitutionnel, is a case in point. The French law oversaw a number of penalties for the use of foreign languages even in the private sphere. The Council reportedly handed out the most sanctions of any body. 

Balázs discovered a similar case in the Canadian High Court whereby the first draft of the Charte de la langue française was replaced with a law that stipulated the use of French, but did not exclude the use of other languages. 

Germany's representative for immigration and minorities, Christoph Bergner, warns against undermining the significance of minorities in mid and eastern European member states. Bergner says the new law and the denial of entry to Solymon must be viewed as a serious catalyst for further conflict within the EU. 

On a European level, such conflicts - according to Bergner - receive less attention than the integration of immigrants from so-called third countries. "The existence of national minorities in the eastern and southern corridors is the result of Europe's migratory history. Europe's identity is not only defined by its variety of disparate states but also by the existence of minorities within national borders," Bergner said. 

Though all member states have ratified the Framework Agreement on the protection of national minorities and the Charter of Regional and Minority Languages, according to Bergner, these agreements often only established formal guidelines but could not prevent political tensions espoused by minority issues, such as infringements towards Roma people. This is a developmental problem concerning European integration, he added.