HUNGARY: The Hungarian government offered an olive branch to supporters of a failed referendum on dual citizenship yesterday, saying it would make it easier for the five million ethnic Hungarians living abroad to get a passport from their ancestral homeland, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Budapest
"We will look for a way to make dual citizenship for ethnic Hungarians much more simple," the Prime Minister, Mr Ferenc Gyurcsany, said without giving details of any plans.
He was speaking a day after too few of his countrymen voted to validate a referendum on giving citizenship to members of the Hungarian diaspora, which was created by the redrawing of national borders according to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. The pact punished Hungary for its role in the first World War and created Hungarian minorities in most neighbouring countries.
About 1.4 million now live in Romania, 600,000 in Slovakia, 300,000 in Serbia and others in Ukraine and elsewhere. Mr Gyurcsany's Socialist Party opposed the referendum, saying the potential new passport holders could cripple the new EU member's economy with their benefit claims.
He also abhorred the "populism and nationalism" of right-wing firebrand Mr Viktor Orban, who had hailed the referendum as a chance to avenge the perceived injustice of Trianon and reunite the Hungarian nation.
"I understand that the country does not confuse nationalism with responsible patriotism," Mr Gyurcsany said, as it became clear that a turnout of only 37 per cent would render the vote invalid.
"I heard the voters say no to emotion, partiality and to a fruitless looking to the past and to national and social populism," Mr Gyurcsany said, saying he had won a potentially damaging political battle "without joy".
The referendum's supporters, in Hungary and abroad, were stunned by their defeat.
"This result is shocking," said Mr Jeno Szasz, an ethnic Hungarian politician in Romania. "But at least now the issue is on the political agenda." Mr Miklos Patrubany, of the World Federation of Hungarians, refused to accept the validity of the poll.