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Foreign Ministry: We Have Some Concerns about Hungary's Moves
Tuesday 15 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 15 (TASR) - The claims by Hungarian Foreign Affairs Ministry State Secretary Vilmos Szabo on Tuesday that Slovakia unilaterally interrupted talks about the State Language Act are unserious, Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Peter Stano told TASR on Tuesday.
"In communication with partners, the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry puts a premium on decency and it expects the same of its partners. Therefore we perceive the recent moves by Budapest concerning Slovakia's State Language Act with surprise and even with slight concern," said Stano.
According to Stano, Szabo's statement is similarly unserious as when Hungary released information from a confidential and continuing diplomatic communication about the proposed date of the next session of the Mixed Committee for Ethnic Minorities.
"Slovakia's Foreign Affairs Ministry, emphasising decency and seriousness in neighbourly relations, reiterates that in the issue pertaining to implementation of the Language Act it is acting as transparently as possible, in line with the agreement between the Slovak Premier (Robert Fico) and the Hungarian Premier Gordon Bajnai in Szecseny (in September), and in active co-operation with the chief authority in this issue, the Office of OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities (Knut Vollebaek)," said Stano.
"Similarly, we're ready to discuss the Language Act at the Mixed Committee at a time that will be mutually agreed upon. Proof of our serious approach is the fact that we don't cancel a session a day in advance, as the Hungarian side did in the case of the Mixed Committee for Euro-Atlantic Integration, and we don't make from it a manufactured political case," said Stano.
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