Tisza Party to Native Hungarian Minority: Forget Your Mother Tongue, Learn Ukrainian and Romanian

At a session of the European Parliament, Zoltan Tarr, Tisza Party Vice President and head of its EP delegation, spoke about the importance of Ukrainian language skills for national minorities living in Ukraine. Without even mentioning the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, he argued that people whose mother tongue is not Ukrainian can only become full members of society by learning the state language. His fellow Tisza MEP, Kinga Kollar, went even further, saying that Hungarians in Transylvania should speak better Romanian, since preserving their mother tongue is a handicap.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Culture held a joint meeting with the Ukrainian Parliament’s Education Committee on Wednesday. At the event, the leader of the Tisza Party’s EP delegation delivered a startling argument.

Zoltan Tarr spoke about how the Ukrainian-language education of minority students whose mother tongue is not Ukrainian could be solved in Ukraine.

He asked how they could provide assistance with this.

Transcarpathians Should Learn Ukrainian

Peter Magyar’s close ally raised the question of whether there was already a plan“for solving the issue of Ukrainian-language education for non-Ukrainian-speaking minority students in Ukraine.” Tarr then suggested that the EP’s Committee on Culture could help with this so that “minorities who regard Ukraine as their homeland could become acquainted with the Ukrainian language in order to function as full members of society.”

The Tisza Party vice president did not advocate for the restoration of the right of the indigenous Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia to use their mother tongue, 

but instead sought a way to improve their Ukrainian language skills.

Tisza Carries On the Anti-Hungarian Baton

Fidesz MEP Csaba Domotor reacted in a video about the event, calling the statements outrageously anti-Hungarian. He pointed out that what Tarr calls “non-Ukrainian-speaking minority in Ukraine” actually means the indigenous Hungarians of Transcarpathia.

It’s at least as important to point out that the main problem of the native Hungarians in Transcarpathia is hardly that they can’t speak Ukrainian. Much more so, it’s about how they can learn and prosper in Hungarian, in their mother tongue,”

he said.

The use of the Hungarian minority’s mother tongue is heavily restricted in Ukraine, with no sign of change. Domotor also criticized the European Commission, which is fast-tracking Ukraine’s EU accession talks without even opening the issue of minority rights. 

Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos brushed the matter aside by saying she had been there and Ukraine had met Hungary’s demands on minority issues. “That’s simply not true,” Fidesz MEP Csaba Domotor stressed.

He concluded that the anti-Hungarian policies against the indigenous Hungarians in the countries surrounding Hungary—handed down from the Socialist Party (MSZP) to Momentum—are now being carried forward by the Tisza Party.

Kinga Kollar: Mother Tongue Is a Disadvantage for Transylvanian Hungarians

This interpretation was reinforced by Kinga Kollar’s comment under Zoltan Tarr’s Facebook post, which also discussed the issue. The Tisza Party’s other MEP wrote:

During my last visit to Transylvania, my host told me the same thing: alongside other forms of discrimination, young people are also held back from getting good jobs or building successful businesses because they don’t speak Romanian well enough. Preserving Hungarian as a mother tongue must not become a disadvantage in life!

Thus, Kinga Kollar directly stated that for Hungarians in Transylvania, learning proper Romanian is more important than preserving their mother tongue.

This was not her first controversial statement revealing a lack of national sentiment. Earlier, she caused outrage by expressing delight over the withholding of EU funds due to Hungary, arguing that the declining standard of living of Hungarians would improve the opposition’s chances at electoral victory.