The Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially confirmed to the Party of the Hungarian Community (SMK-MKP) that Slovakia joined, on the side of Romania, the lawsuit launched at the Luxembourg court in the aim of undermining the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative on minority protection. Lucia Žitňanská’s (Most- Híd) Ministry of Justice challenged the initiative on minority protection in the Court at the initiative of Miroslav Lajčák’s (SMER) Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The purpose of the pan-European signatures collection supporting the Minority SafePack initiative is to oblige the European Union to lay down legislation on minority protection, which will be binding on Member States. The Party of the Hungarian Community has considered the lawsuit to be in contradiction with the fact that the Slovak Government which said that the national minorities of Slovakia are enjoying ‘broader rights than the European standards’ is fighting tooth and nail to prevent enshrining these standards in Union legislation. The SMK-MKP has also found it contradictory and deeply disappointing that the government coalition party (Most-Híd) that have undertaken the representation of (ethnic) Hungarians in Slovakia is trying to defeat the signatures collection in the Court rather than helping it. The Minority SafePack initiative on minority protection has come a long and bumpy way. Romania and Slovakia challenged the initiative in the EU court in 2013, but they lost the lawsuit, signatures collection could therefore begin this year. Signatures collection is in full swing across Europe. (Ethnic) Ruthenians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians in Slovakia and other fair-minded people of Slovakia have joined forces for a good cause.
SMK-MKP Press Statement:
(www.mkp.sk, 16 Oct 2017)
