MP József Kulcsár-Terza is going to submit the autonomy plan of Szeklerland to the Romanian parliament, together with MP Zoltán Zakariás as co-initiator – announced the Transylvanian Hungarian Alliance (known by its Hungarian acronym of EMSZ) on Monday.
EMSZ is a fairly new Transylvanian-Hungarian political party, which was formed at the beginning of 2020 by the fusion of the Hungarian People’s Party of Transylvania (EMNP) and Hungarian Civic Party (MPP). A few months later, after the Romanian parliamentary elections in December, two of its members from the joint list of EMSZ and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (known by its Hungarian acronym of RMDSZ) entered the Romanian parliament.
Last week in Budapest, the two Transylvanian-Hungarian politicians, József Kulcsár-Terza and Zoltán Zakariás, were part of the regional working group of the Forum of the Hungarian MPs of the Carpathian Basin, which was organized in the Hungarian parliament to talk about their intention to once again submit the autonomy plan.
The agenda of the conference, held on June 10, included topics related to the protection of minority rights during the Council of Europe’s Hungarian Presidency (May to November 2021), the problems of ethnic Hungarian municipalities across the Carpathian Basin (but outside of Hungary), and European citizen initiatives about minority rights protection.
József Kulcsár-Terza and Zoltán Zakariás presented the status of Szekler autonomy efforts at the conference. Kulcsár-Terza also announced that he is going to submit the bill on the autonomy plan of Szeklerland to the Bucharest Parliament again; he will be supported by Zoltán Zakariás as co-initiator.
The EMSZ MPs noted that the government program also includes the submission of the minority bill, which is expected to be voted on this September. Zoltán Zakariás emphasized that the goal of the bill has to be the institutionalization of cultural autonomy and that the political parties have to work out the details during the summer by cooperating with the non-governmental organizations that have already dealt extensively with this topic.
Title image: József Kulcsár-Terza (on the left) and Zoltán Zakariás (on the right) in Budapest, in the Hungarian parliament on June 10, 2021, at the Reginal Forum of the Hungarian Representatives of the Carpathian Basin. (Photo: EMSZ)
