The issue of national minorities is not a domestic issue but a European one, Katalin Szili, the PM's commissioner in charge of minority protection and autonomy, said.
Officials Mark Szekler Freedom Day
Katalin Szili, the prime minister’s commissioner, and Árpád János Potápi, state secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, issued a joint statement to mark the Day of Szekler Freedom, on Wednesday.
In their statement, the two officials paid tribute to Szekler freedom fighters executed in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) on March 10, 1854. “This day is also to pay tribute to the courage of the Szekler people standing united and fighting for autonomy defined within an European framework and in line with fundamental European principles.”
Signatories to the statement noted that the civil initiative aimed at promoting national regions within the European Union was now supported by nearly 1.2 people, adding that the high number indicated the high level of “unity and solidarity”.
Despite more than one million signatures collected across Europe, the European Parliament’s and the Bundestag’s backing of the Minority SafePack citizens’ initiative urging EU protection for indigenous national minorities in the bloc, the European Commission eventually rejected it.
According to the EC’s Friday statement, a wide range of measures had been taken to address the issues outlined in the initiative since it was launched in 2013. “While no further legal acts are proposed, the full implementation of legislation and policies already in place provides a powerful arsenal to support the Initiative’s goals,” reads the statement.
Fact Minority SafePack initiative, launched by Romania’s ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party and coordinated by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), contains a comprehensive set of measures to protect and promote the cultural and linguistic diversity of autochthonous national minorities in a sustainable way. It is not to be conf