Loránt Vincze, President of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) was invited by the FUEN member Hungarian Civic Party (MPP) to attend its congress on February 11th in Satu Mare / Szatmárnémeti, Romania. RMDSZ President Hunor Kelemen and several representatives of the kin-state Hungary were also present at the general assembly, which re-elected Zsolt Biró as President of the MPP.

“Our goal, the goal of the European national communities is clear: we want to stay and live in our homeland, we want to use our mother tongue and protect our culture with our own institutions. In general, we would like to decide on matter regarding our communities ourselves, in autonomy.” – said Loránt Vincze about the scope of FUEN. 

He spoke about the struggles that the political representation of Hungarians faced in Romania, until it became obvious that there is a great need for solidarity, common goals and joint action. The FUEN President also stressed that dissonance is a luxury that only societies lacking values and vision can afford. Mr Vincze praised the partnership between the RMDSZ and the MPP, two FUEN member organizations representing the Hungarian community in Romania. The cooperation started in 2014 with the MPP’s FUEN membership application also supported by the RMDSZ and it has recently resulted in a successful common election list under the logo of the RMDSZ and a joint parliamentary group in the Romanian Parliament. Now, they are already preparing the 2017 FUEN Congress in Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár / Klausenburg, Romania

Regarding the Minority SafePack’s case President Vincze told the audience that the European Commission continuously ignored minority issues claiming that it had no competence in this matter. The MSPI was an elaborate answer to break this attitude and even though it was refused at first by the Commission, the initiators won the first appeal in the history of the European Citizens’ Initiative. “We would very much like to see this initiative turned into law and then we could proudly say that the journey we had started in 2011 eventually led to success in Brussels.” – concluded FUEN President Loránt Vincze in Satu Mare / Szatmárnémeti.

Photo below: Re-elected President of the Hungarian Civic Party Zsolt Biró