Orban sees Transcarpathia as his colony - head of Hungarian community in Kyiv

He shared his opinion on the Espreso TV channel.

"Today, on January 30 in Budapest, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, answering a question about the possibility of a meeting between Orban and Zelenskyy, said unequivocally that this meeting is very, very far away, because a lot needs to be done. He noted that in order for this meeting to take place, Ukrainian-Hungarian relations must acquire a new dimension. In his view, the new dimension is for Ukraine to fulfil all 11 demands. These 11 demands relate exclusively to what they call the rights of the national Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia. I don't think it's worth a dime," commented the head of the Hungarian community in Kyiv and the region.

According to him, many of these requirements have been fulfilled, but Szijjarto said that Ukraine needs to return to 2015 and relentlessly implement the notorious Kolesnichenko-Kivalov law (the law obliged local governments to take measures to develop, use and protect a regional language if the number of native speakers of that language exceeds 10% - ed.)

"That is, they demand that the Hungarian language be spoken in all administrative institutions. I'm sorry, it's not even about protecting the Hungarian minority, because the largest number of Hungarians left in Transcarpathia today is 50,000, precisely because of Orban's policy. Many Hungarians have left Transcarpathia because they do not speak Ukrainian and become cheap slave labour for Orban. They also want the external independent testing to be in Hungarian. Orban wants to get all of Transcarpathia with its population under his rule. He and his clientele consider Transcarpathia to be his protectorate, his colony. In addition to these 11 points, there is a second set of demands, in which Ukraine must complete all infrastructure projects in Transcarpathia, because the Hungarian side expects this to enable better development of Hungary itself, but there is no mention of Ukraine. After Szijjarto's visit to Ukraine, as I expected, there was no breakthrough," Tibor Tompa said.

Tompa summed up that Ukraine needs to work closely with its European partners so that they can put Orban in his place by exerting influence on him.

• On January 29, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto arrived in Ukraine to meet with the head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
• On January 30, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he was ready to support the provision of assistance to Ukraine from the EU budget, but on one condition