Diplomatic Steps of the Antall Government towards the Euro-Atlantic Integration

My dissertation is based on more than ten years of archival research. One of the goals of Antall’s foreign policy was the Euro-Atlantic integration. In December 1991, Hungary signed an association agreement with the European Community. By 1992, opinions on the future were divided between and within the Member States of the European Communities. There was a debate among the twelve about the concept of ‘deepening’ or ‘widening’, and the term ‘multi-speed Europe’ appeared. At this time, a number of questions arose about the full membership of the Trio in NATO, of which ‘how’ and ‘when’ came first. It has also been suggested whether it would be more appropriate to intensify economic and political cooperation rather than military ones. Perhaps the NACC should be thoroughly expanded first and then move on to expanding the range of full member states?

Neighbourhood Policy vs. Remembrance Policy: Romania and Hungary

In East-Central Europe, the past has always been a determining factor as a framework for interpretation: the social construction of the past often serves (served) current political purposes. It is no wonder that in the countries of the region, often different, sometimes contradictory interpretations of the past have emerged. In today’s European situation, however, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are perhaps most keenly faced by the transformation of Europe, with unclear, chaotic ideas dominating political and intellectual markets instead of previous (accepted) values – in the tension between old and new, Europe’s future is at stake. The question is: what role the states of Central and Eastern Europe play/can play, to what extent they will be able to place the neighbourhood policy alongside (perhaps in front of) the policy of remembrance and seek common answers to Europe’s great dilemmas.

Economic Stabilization after the Treaty of Trianon: Challenges and Possibilities

The ‘Great War’ had harmful impacts on Hungary’s national economy. With the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the former self-sufficient economic unit broke into six different entities, which had far-reaching consequences in Central and Eastern Europe. Economic difficulties were further aggravated by rampant inflation. Finally, the loss of the majority of raw materials by the Treaty of Trianon meant that Hungary was cut off from its sources of supply. The following paper examines the impacts of economic reconstruction in Hungary. The analysis also focuses on the development of industry, agriculture, and trade in the 1920s.

The Problem of Transylvania in the Emigration Correspondence of Count Béla Teleki from the End of the Second World War to the Abolition of the Communist Regime

The aim of this study is to analyse the voluminous emigration correspondence of Count Béla Teleki in order to highlight his main thoughts about the future of Transylvania. Béla Teleki was one of the most important Transylvanian politicians in the middle of the 20th century. His political career reached its peak at the time when Northern Transylvania was regained by Hungary after the Second Vienna Award. At the end of the Second World War, Teleki was persecuted by the Secret Police of the new Hungarian Communist Regime. Starting from 1951, he lived in the United States until his death on 7 February 1990. During the decades of his life in emigration, he carried on a great correspondence with the leading personalities of the Hungarian emigration in the West, several members of the American Senate, and even with President Gerald Ford. In this way, Béla Teleki became one of the central personalities of the Hungarian emigration in the Western World. His opinion, his voice were determining. This study summarizes the most important theme Béla Teleki was preoccupied with, the future of Transylvania, as he imagined it, by making a short analysis of his correspondence consisting of thousands of letters.

Cyber Security Strategies of the Visegrád Group States and Romania

Among security challenges that have emerged on nation-state level, attacks in cyber space are ‘products’ of the recent past. Their significance has been overvalued especially in 2007 owing to the cyber attack against Estonia. As a consequence, it were not only the European Union (EU) and the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to have created their own cyber security strategies but the majority of states have also made preparations for preventing and deterring threats from the cyber space. States of the Visegrád Four (V4) and Romania, though all full members of both the EU and the NATO, have prepared their own cyber security strategies. The objective of this study is to offer a comparative analysis of cyber security strategies of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, contrasting them to the relevant documents of the EU and the NATO, pointing out the identities and differences. A further essential element of the research is the description of the cooperation between V4 members in the implementation of cyber security strategies and of the chances of broader regional cooperation in the given field based on the jointly adopted documents or on other grounds. One important step in this area was the adoption of the Central European Cyber Security Platform in 2013. This common move, joined also by Austria, is directed mainly at technical exercises. However, the functioning of the Platform is not free from difficulties. Therefore, V4 members have undertaken to find common solutions, including education and professional training for the further development of regional cooperation and widening its spectrum.

Changes in the Townscape of Lampertszásza (Berehove/Beregszász) in the 13th–15th Centuries

Across the River Tisza, there lies a town, Berehove (hereinafter also referred to as Beregszász [Hu]), situated on the north-eastern edge of the Great Hungarian Plain with the wind swaying ears of wheat, on the flatlands surrounded by rustling oak forests, gold-sweating trachyte mountains, and rivers subsiding upon reaching the plain. It is a veritable fairy garden, a small piece of the realm that out foremother, Emese, dreamt of back in the day. Places, just as people, have their own destinies: they emerge, evolve, thrive, and then, if they are destined so, disappear from the stage of history. The very first mention of Berehove dates back to early 1063, recorded under the name Lamperti, as the estate of Prince Lampert, son of Béla I of Hungary. Prince Lampert founded the later town. At the time, a small settlement must have been situated here with the prince’s countryseat inhabited by the garrison and the household servants. Residents of the house were mostly the gamekeepers and huntsmen of Bereg Forest County. To fully uncover the past is not possible – at the very most, some attempts can be made at its reconstruction by drawing on contemporary sources and relying on archaeological research. The mediaeval layout of the settlement is known from the available sources and serves as a basis for the present study in its efforts to reconstruct the settlement image of the historical town centre and to find out why Lampertszásza did not embark on the path of the ‘classic, city wall/fortification’ type of settlement development. The parish church is the only building of the mediaeval townscape that has survived partially, which, however, provides us with indications about the contemporary buildings of the one-time reginal town and the related ‘block of church buildings’.

Designing Legitimate Institutions for Non-Territorial Autonomies. Insights from the Debates within the Hungarian Communities of Serbia and Romania

In this paper, I examine some problematic aspects of minority self-governments, more specifically non-territorial cultural or national-cultural autonomy, through an analysis of the cases of the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Serbia. Although the Hungarian minority élites have put forward demands and plans for various forms of autonomy in both countries after 1990, only one particular form of minority self-government, namely national-cultural autonomy, proved to be acceptable for the majority, and eventually such a system was only implemented in Serbia but not in Romania. The focus in the article is more on the form than on the content of autonomy as the design of the institutions of self-government is of central importance also with regard to the power relations within the imagined political community of the minority. Despite the differences between the legal-institutional systems of minority protection of the two states, the patterns of minority élite behaviour were rather similar in the two analysed cases, the institutional form of the envisaged autonomy becoming a very divisive issue and exerting a strong impact on the internal political dynamics of the minorities.

How Do You Want Me to Address You? – The Macedonian Name Dispute Resolved

The Macedonian name dispute, a political debate between Greece and the current Republic of North Macedonia, arose after the break-up of the multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. The issue was overpoliticized for the societies of both countries. The international community followed the dispute, yet it did not exercise any pressure on Greece to cede in a debate seen by many as the stronger bullying the weaker. A breakthrough became achievable when political forces interested in the resolution came into power in both countries in the mid-2010s. The Prespa Agreement, signed in 2018, offered a mutually acceptable resolution and opened the way for North Macedonia to enter the NATO and to the opening of accession talks with the EU in March 2020.

Territorial Interrelation between Innovation and a Number of Social/Infrastructural Indicators in Central and Eastern Europe (V4 + Romania)

The study examines the performance of the Visegrád countries and Romania. As an indicator of innovation performance, we used the number of researchers measured from the active population. Due to the large variations in the size of the administrative-territorial units, the use of this ratio seems more adequate than using absolute values. The innovation indicator and the other indicators used are included in the analysis database in a regional breakdown. All indicators have an overview map of the entire large region for the purpose of establishing the territorial profile. In the course of the statistical investigation, each indicator was individually compared to the innovation index.