“Local disputes that spill over into state-to-state relations”: international expert on statements about alleged oppression of Hungarians in Zakarpattia

Director of the Institute of Central European Strategy Dmytro Tuzhanskyi said this on Espreso.

“In the Mukachevo United Territorial Community, by the decision of the local authorities, flags and signs in the Hungarian language were removed from two villages. These flags are identical to the Hungarian flag. According to the law, the community can use these symbols as symbols of the community. The director of the school was also fired there. In fact, these are local political clashes between the Hungarian team and Viktor Baloha (MP, former emergency minister who is influential in the region - ed.). This is bad, because it all spills over into international relations,” the expert noted.

He also emphasized that all this is happening 10 days before the Ukraine-EU summit.

“The law on national minorities will be discussed there. And we will hear Budapest's rhetoric again, they will have evidence. No one will understand that this is an individual conflict only in the Mukachevo community. The situation is multilayered, localized, and one must have patience and knowledge to explain it to the Ukrainian public and our Western partners,” Tuzhanskyi concluded.

• In the villages of Fornosh and Dertsen of the Mukachevo community, the Hungarian flags were removed from the elders, and in Hungary it was called oppression of the Hungarians.