National agenda

The Slovak Spectator newspaper reported in length what followed on the day that the language act came into effect.

Protests against were held on both sides of the Danube, with the biggest being organised by Slovakia’s Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK), along with other Hungarian civil society organisations, in the Hungarian-dominated town of Dunajska Streda. Organisers said that more than 6000 people attended the protest, most of them ethnic Hungarians living in southern Slovakia, with vehicles with Hungarian and Romanian licence plates also spotted in the town.

A similar protest was held in front of the Slovak embassy in Budapest, where about 500 people gathered and delivered a petition to Slovak ambassador Peter Weiss requesting changes to the law.

SMK leader Pal Csaky said that the amendments "criminalised" the use of the Hungarian language in Slovakia and that the law was another sad level in the moral crisis in Slovak society.

"Our intentions are peaceful but radical, since they are in the interests of our survival," a statement adopted by the protesters said.

According to Jan Slota, leader of the ruling coalition’s extremist Slovak National Party, known for its anti-Hungarian feelings, Hungary was using its loyal servants from SMK to escalate tension between Slovakia and Hungary by staging this protest, The Slovak Spectator quoted local media as saying.

"There is a real threat that Hungary will keep escalating the tension in central Europe until it ignites a war conflict," Slota said.

"The one who threatens war escalates the tension," Laszlo Ollos, a political analyst and ethnic Hungarian intellectual who attended the protest in Dunajska Streda, told The Slovak Spectator. He said that no provocative statements were made at the rally and it was a very civil and calm protest, with the exception of a couple of hundred extremists displaying banners about autonomy and similar demands.

The Hungarian response was swift. Members of the Hungarian extreme right-wing party Jobbik protested against the Slovak language law by blocking Slovak-Hungarian borders in the Hungarian towns of Komarom and Esztergom, the Slovak Spectator said. About 200 protesters called for the immediate repeal of the law while vehicles with Hungarian and Jobbik flags blocked the road leading from the Hungarian village of Rajka to the adjacent Slovak border crossing at Rusovce.

"The Hungarians did nothing wrong and therefore Slovaks should apologise to the Hungarians and not vice versa," Vona said, as quoted by local media.

In the middle
Two days after the September 1 events, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) high commissioner on national minorities (HCNM) Knut Vollebaek, issued a statement calling for emotions to cool.

Vollebaek decided to take a balanced positions on the issue, saying that an appropriate balance had to be ensured between "strengthening the state language on the one hand, and protecting the linguistic rights of persons belonging to national minorities on the other".

The statement came out seven days before the postponed meeting of Hungarian prime minister Gordon Bajnai and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico was about to be held on the Hungarian side of the border. The meeting resulted in an 11-point joint statement, with both sides agreeing to accept all Vollebaek’s recommendations and work closely with him in drafting guidelines on how to tackle the issue. Both prime ministers also expressed their regret about the circumstances of the planned August 21 visit by Hungary’s president Solyom.

Further, both agreed to take firm measures against extremist phenomena and groups, all forms of xenophobia, intolerance, chauvinism, and nationalism, and all manifestations of violence and their exports to other countries.

After the formal agreement was reached, European Commissioner for Multilingualism Leonard Orban said on September 16 that Slovakia’s state language act did not contravene European law, but problems could arise in its implementation. Orban’s spokesperson said that the EC did not have powers in the sphere of languages, but it nevertheless regretted the Slovak-Hungarian dispute. This made it clear that the EU did not want to become involved in the issue as long as both sides could reach a compromise. 

Things could have ended there were it not for Hungarian foreign minister Peter Balazs’ September 17 interview with German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in which he referred to Slovakia  as a "younger brother who needs to be taught European manners". To make things worse, he compared Slovakia to Romania under the Ceausescu dictatorship.

Naturally, Slovakia said these statements were unacceptable and requested an official explanation from Hungary’s ambassador, yet further evidence of the sensitive nature of bilateral relations between the countries.

The Danube conflict
Language is not the only thing that Slovakia and Hungary have been arguing about over the past 20 years, when the absence of the Soviet Union’s grip made it possible for all hidden agendas to come into the light.

One of the most notable conflicts reached boiling point in 1993, with the Danube as the bone of contention. In that year, Hungary decided not to fulfil a contract for the construction of a dam and a barrage system on the Danube known as the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros barrage system. The contract was signed in 1977 by the communist regimes of Hungary and Czechoslovakia with the purpose to dam the Danube all the way from Bratislava to Budapest. The contract provides for construction on both Hungary and Slovakia territories.

In 1993, however, Hungary abandoned construction unilaterally, claiming that the communist governments had ignored environmental concerns. As a result, Slovakia, which had already started construction on its side, submitted the dispute to the European Court of Justice while meanwhile diverting the Danube. This was the first time when the court was to rule on an environmental dispute which remains unresolved.