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.

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.