Prime Minister Viktor Orbán László Tőkés asked Prime Minister Viktor Tőkés to support the autonomy aspirations in his Saturday lecture held at the Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp (Tusványos).
"We would like to thank the Prime Minister to support our autonomy efforts even more effectively than before, knowing that integration without community rights and autonomy is a breeding ground for assimilation," stated the former bishop.
He recalled that the criminalization of the institution of autonomy has been a feature of Romanian political life since the beginning of the 1990s. He quoted President Ion Iliescu from a former secret document made public, who told US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke in 1995 that approving the demand for autonomy would "lead to the bantustanization of Romania."
He believed that this view was also reflected in Romanian President Klaus Iohannis' "infamous outburst" two years ago, when he accused his social democratic opponents of "wanting to provide extensive autonomy to Székelyföld" and "wanting to give Transylvania to the Hungarians".
He interpreted it as the fact that István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs had to endure political imprisonment because of the demand for autonomy, and the court of honor of the award recommended the withdrawal of the Romanian state award awarded to him for representing the demand for autonomy.
According to László Tőkés
the constant criminalization of autonomy in Bucharest led to the fact that even the Hungarian political life in Transylvania is divided by the issue of national self-determination.
"We could only change this contradictory situation with a unified public will. The Transylvanian Hungarian National Council, together with its direct allies, the Székely National Council and the newly established Transylvanian Hungarian Association, will continue its fight for multi-level Transylvanian autonomy, as set out in the program of the RMDSZ, unchanged and without compromise," he declared. He added that they will take advantage of the positional advantage of the RMDSZ in the Romanian government to give new impetus to the autonomy issue that requires the approval of the Romanian parliament.
László Tőkés believed:
the first test of the hoped-for Hungarian unity in Transylvania will be the development and adoption of the minority law foreseen in the government program.
He recalled: János Hunyadi stopped the Turkish advance at Nándorfehérvár on July 22, 1456, and the memory of his victory is preserved throughout Europe by the sound of the southern bell.
"In the age of silent bells, the solidarity of Europe's powers can hardly be counted on"
he stated. He believed that after several centuries of border guarding, the protection of the geographical and linguistic borders of the Hungarian national community, which transcends the country's borders, is now the responsibility of the Székely region.
László Tőkés - who celebrated his seventieth birthday in April - received the surprise book from Zsolt Németh, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament, on the main stage in Tusványos, which the Pro Minoritate Foundation compiled for his birthday from his writings and the writings of his contemporaries. Quoting his former mentor Zsolt Németh, the philosopher Ernő Fábián from Kovászna, he declared: "László Tőkés is not the man who is right, but the one who will be right."
MTI
Cover image: In the photo published by the Prime Minister's Press Office, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (k), Zsolt Németh, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly (b) and László Tõkés, chairman of the Transylvanian Hungarian National Council (EMNT) (j) before the prime minister's speech at the 31st Bálványosi Summer Free University and Student Camp at Tusnádfürdő in Transylvania on July 23, 2022.
MTI/Prime Minister's Press Office/Benko Vivien Cher
