BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) – Hungary will begin issuing a “national visa” for citizens of four neighboring, non-EU countries that have large ethnic-Hungarian minorities, the foreign ministry said Oct. 5.
The visas will available from Jan. 1, 2006, to all citizens of Romania, Croatia, Ukraine and Serbia and Montenegro wanting to come to Hungary for longer than three months to study Hungarian, preserve their cultural identity, study in private institutions of higher education or cultivate family ties, ministry spokesman Viktor Polgar said.
Mostly ethnic Hungarians are expected to apply for the new type of visa, but it will be available to all citizens of the four countries to avoid discrimination, Polgar said.
Holders of the “national visa” will be able to apply for automatic, long-term residency permits, allowing them to travel freely inside the EU’s “Schengen zone,” where travelers can move across borders without mandatory passport controls, once Hungary becomes a Schengen country, likely in late 2007.
Hungary’s Socialist-led government last month announced a series of measures aimed at nurturing relations with the 2.4 million ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries, mostly in Romania and Slovakia.
Proposals are being planned to issue ethnic Hungarians special identity cards and amend the constitution to declare that Hungarians living abroad are “members of the Hungarian community.”
Last year, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany led opposition to a referendum seeking to grant citizenship to ethnic Hungarians, saying its economic implications – such as having to grant health and education services – would overburden Hungary’s already-strained state budget.
The referendum failed due to low voter turnout. Many ethnic Hungarians blamed the Gyurcsany government for the fiasco.
