As of March 12, 2021, 3,641 people have lost their Slovak citizenship .

December 2004 was a mental shock for Hungarians across the border. The 5th referendum on dual citizenship, which narrowly failed, primarily due to the hate campaign incited by Ferenc Gyurcsány and the left-liberal government. Several of my friends across the border watched the announcement of the failure of the memorandum with tears in their eyes, and many considered the anti-Hungarian behavior of the government at that time to be treason.

Among the first measures of the second Orbán government, the introduction of dual citizenship into law featured prominently, and the overwhelming majority of the Hungarian parliament voted for it. Of course, several countries, where a significant Hungarian minority remained because of Trianon, did not like this, the outgoing government of Robert Fico - without dampening his nationalist sentiments - immediately introduced the law, based on which, if a Slovak citizen takes a new citizenship, especially if the Hungarian, then you lose Slovak.

The situation has not changed significantly since then, and the latest 2021 law amendment even tightened it, so the situation remains humiliating for the Hungarian population. Because they don't want to move here, they want to remain Hungarians where they live. It is important for their souls to belong to the motherland. For that, however, they now have to officially prove they have been established for five years.

Thanks to the Visegrad cooperation, the Hungarian-Slovak relationship has now improved significantly. If we are seriously thinking about a central European axis, we should help each other with greater trust and greater "passage" so that we can better articulate our common interests in Brussels.

By the way, it is not only the Hungarians who are losing weight in our northern neighbors, but according to data from Slovak authorities, there have been more in the last two years alone. more than 500 people lost their Slovak citizenship due to the acquisition of the following citizenships: German (838), Austrian (568), British (368), American (183), Hungarian (134), Swiss (111), Australian (95), Norwegian ( 80), Irish (60), 57 (Dutch), Belgian (46), Swedish (41), Italian (40), Finnish (19), French (18), Luxembourgish (16), Danish (12), Russian ( 5), Chinese, New Zealand, Polish (three each), Icelandic, Ukrainian, Spanish (two), and Israeli, Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian and Singaporean (one).

(The photo illustrating our article was taken from Felvidék.hu.)