Transylvania
Like Corsica and the Basque Country, the Hungarians also want their autonomy in Romania.
Hundreds demonstrated in Târgu Mures, Romania on Sunday on the so-called “Szekler Freedom Day” and adopted a petition for territorial autonomy. The town is called “Marosvásárhely” in Hungarian and the region in the eastern arc of the Carpathians is “Székelyföld”, i.e. the land of the Szeklers. This is a people who are actually identical to the Hungarians throughout the Carpathian Basin, but due to their historical and ethnographic characteristics represent a distinctive and nationally conscious type of Hungarians. The Szeklerland is located in eastern Transylvania and has been in the middle of Romania since 1920 and 1947. During the socialist period, the Hungarian counties enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy in Romania, but this only lasted 16 years until 1968.
Not once morest the unity of Romania
The document now written and sent to the Romanian authorities points out that the Szeklers want to regulate the affairs of their majority region themselves in accordance with the European principle of subsidiarity. At the same time, they point out that the territorial autonomy of Szeklerland does not violate the territorial unity of Romania or the country’s constitution.
A gross political mistake
In his speech, Bishop László Tőkés said the criminalization of autonomy by the Romanian political class was “a gross political mistake that stems from a biased anti-Hungarianism. We are neither extremists nor separatists, and Budapest is not revisionist,” he explained.
The existence of the Szeklerland was denied
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu recently denied the existence of Szeklerland and described its autonomy as “out of the question”. The Hungarians argue their demands with the autonomy of Gagauzia in the Republic of Moldova, the Basque Country in Spain and the special status of the island of Corsica in France.
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