The Szekler National Council and supporters of the initiative that aims to draw the European Union’s attention to regions with national, ethnic, cultural, religious, or other characteristics that are different from those of the surrounding regions have 324 days until May 7, 2020 to gather one million signatures from citizens of seven member states of the EU to make their voice heard.
The European citizens’ initiative entitled “Cohesion policy for the equality of the regions and sustainability of the regional cultures” was registered online on the EU’s platform on May 7, 2019 and has already gathered more than 4,000 signatures without any major campaign. The Szekler National Council’s initiative seeks to convince the European Commission to act for the benefit of those regions in the EU where the national, ethnic, and cultural characteristics are different from those of the surrounding regions, just as in the case of Szeklerland in Transylvania. More than 600,000 Szeklers constitute 75 percent of the population in Covasna, Harghita and Mures counties, in the center of Romania – a region they call Szeklerland – representing half of the country’s Hungarian minority, according to the 2011 census (total: 1.26 million Hungarians).
With their initiative, which has been signed by Hunor Kelemen, President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), the Szekler National Council seeks to emphasize that such regions need special attention and that “the sustainment of development and preservation of the conditions for economic, social, and territorial cohesion should be done in a way that ensures their characteristics remain unchanged. For this, these regions must have equal opportunity to access various EU-funds, and the preservation of their characteristics and their proper economic development must be guaranteed, so that the EU’s development can be sustained, and its cultural diversity maintained.”
The full description of the initiative is available on the nationalregions.eu website, and the initiative can be signed online through this link.
