UDMR Secretary General Peter Eckstein-Kovacs told Romanian ethnics during a show on the public radio station that they may claim to have Magyar ethnicity in the approaching census, ‘Jurnalul National’ writes. The former Presidential advisor presented a theory according to which “assuming the Magyar identity can help the Magyar community,” arguing that the possibility of using the Hungarian language in administration is conditioned by the existence of a 20 per cent share in the ethnic make up of a community. “Anyone can claim to be Magyar. Even one who doesn’t speak Hungarian and his entourage considers him to be a Romanian ethnic. We are open to all those that want to help out the Magyar community through such a gesture,” Eckstein-Kovacs stated. This goal is also included in a decision that the UDMR Congress took in March. “Our goal is for the ethnic Magyar population to assume its national identity in a number that would be as high as possible, and this should be reflected in the census data,” the document shows, according to the aforementioned source. The 2002 census revealed that there are approximately 1.5 million Magyars in Romania. This year the census will take place on October 20-31.
previous post
