The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement expressing its disapproval after Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban wore a scarf featuring a map of "Greater Hungary" during a match between Hungary and Greece. The map included a piece of Transylvania within Hungarian borders.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry conveyed its “firm disapproval” of Orban’s gesture to the Hungarian ambassador in Bucharest, noting that the PM’s “attitude is in contrast with the atmosphere of openness that defined the relaunching of bilateral dialogue” between Romania and Hungary.

“Any revisionist manifestation, regardless of the form it takes, is unacceptable, contrary to the current realities and the commitments undertaken jointly by Romania and Hungary to build a bilateral relationship within the defining parameters of the basic instrument that governs the bilateral relationship, namely the Treaty on the understanding, cooperation and good neighborliness between Romania and the Republic of Hungary, signed in Timișoara on September 16, 1996,” the ministry added in a press release cited by G4Media.

Hungarian government officials have been using the map of “Greater Hungary” consistently for several years. In June 2019, Romania and Slovenia condemned the publication of a map representing "Greater Hungary" from which the neighboring states each "tear off" a piece, Romania being represented as taking Transylvania. The map was published on the website abouthungary.hu, managed by prime minister Viktor Orban's office.

In December of the same year, Orban chaired a FIDESZ meeting with the map of Greater Hungary in the background. The map showed Hungary as including pieces of present-day Croatia. In reply, Croatian PM Andrej Plenković said that the map was “a challenge.” At the end of April 2020, a Hungarian minister gave an interview with the BBC with the same map in the background, according to G4Media.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Viktor Orban on Facebook)