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SZILI: 'INTEGRATION ONLY ASSIMILATION' WITHOUT COLLECTIVE RIGHTS

 

Integration of the Transylvanian Hungarian community into the Romania mainstream, in the absence of collective rights, would only amount to assimilation, Katalin Szili, the prime ministerial commissioner for the coordination of tasks related to the aspirations of autonomy in the Carpathian Basin, said in Sfântu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy) on Saturday, at the opening session of the Hungarian National Council in Transylvania.
After conveying thanks from Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén and Árpád János Potápi, the state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad, Szili said the Hungarian nation had never been as strong, united or determined in obtaining guarantees of its security and prosperity as it was now, and she thanked the council for its firm commitment to autonomy.
“Let me send a message to the Romanian mainstream: don’t believe your politicians. Our aspirations are not about breaking anything apart but rather, based on the principle of European subsidiarity, about becoming a community that can forge its own destiny,” she said. “We need dialogue to ensure common understanding that this is all about a community’s survival, its future, and the identity of our children and grandchildren.”