The rights ethnic Hungarians in Romania are enjoying at present warrant the safekeeping of the cultural and linguistic identity of this country, said the Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi. The Romanian official sees no place for misgivings regarding an administrative reform aimed at curbing bureaucracy and at boosting the absorption of EU funds. The statement follows against the backdrop of mounting political discontent regarding the draft law.

Plans to push the administrative-territorial reorganization of Romania into law have set ruling coalition parties against each other. The draft law recently issued by the Liberal Democrats was met with a categorical no by their junior partners in the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania. According to the union, the eight-county division fostered by the Liberal-Democrats is inappropriate, with some voices implying this might lead to a fracture within the ruling coalition.

The Union would instead opt for a 16-county territorial reorganization, with one county coinciding to the so-called “Szekler Land” comprising Covasna, Harghita and Mures counties. Inhabited by a predominantly ethnic Hungarian population, the area has a long history of claims concerning administrative autonomy. Bucharest officials do not yet agree with divisions grounded on ethnical criteria and repeatedly dismissed this option whenever the issue was brought up.

Some voices in the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania have gone even further. The head of the Covasna County Council, Tamas Sandor has called for “civil disobedience” should the Szekler Land not be recognized, although the administrative-territorial unit has no legal or constitutional underpinning. Aware of the coalition’s reliance on the votes of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, PM Emil Boc has in turn called for dialogue:

“We, the members of the Liberal Democratic Party, believe we have sound and compelling arguments to support our project. Politics is a continuous dialogue, a flow of arguments and counter-arguments in favour of one solution or another. Hence this process must continue, and we will shortly present you with its conclusions. Dialogue is the only natural way of solving the problems we share, and, for the past 20 years, our partners in the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania have turned dialogue into a “weapon” of political cooperation, in the political sense of the word”.

In an interview with the Romanian Broadcasting Corporation, PM Boc explained that small counties would not be able to access EU funds directly, which would only be acceptable in the case of administrative-territorial units with a population of at least 3 million inhabitants.

“Turning the present regions into counties with a population of 2 to 3 million inhabitants has nothing to do with preserving the identity of various ethnic minorities”, said Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi. The Romanian official went on to say that the ethnic harmony in Transylvania is a commendable reality that no one has the right to unravel by staging hostile manifestations.