Dual Citizenship and Hungarian Minorities Abroad
News, Information, Analyses

On 5 December 2004 there will be a referendum in Hungary on offering Hungarian citizenship to Hungarian minorities living abroad. The question has evoked a heated debated both among the political parties and in the Hungarian society on the possible consequences and implications of extending Hungarian citizenship.

On a popular initiative, the President of the Republic of Hungary put to a referendum the following question:

"Do you want the National Assembly to legislate a law on offering - upon individual request - Hungarian citizenship, by preferential naturalization, to non-Hungarian citizens, living outside Hungary, declaring themselves to be of Hungarian nationality, proving their Hungarian nationality either by a "Hungarian Certificate" under Art. 19 of the Act 62/2001 or in another way, defined in the law requested for legislation?"

The Minority Studies Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Teleki László Institute, in co-operation with the Department of International Law of the Faculty of Public Administration of the Budapest Corvinus University, have created the present site to provide up-to-date information and theoretical analyses on the political and legal issues and developments related to the referendum on the extension of Hungarian citizenship. Besides the Hungarian and neighbouring countries' legislation on citizenship, naturalization and repatriation, you can find here the official position of the different Hungarian state authorities, political parties, civil organizations, and churches, the most important opinion articles published in Hungarian and international press, together with studies and policy papers written by distinguished scholars analyzing the legal, political and social aspects of the issue.

More than 2,5 million people live outside Hungary in neighbouring states who belong to the Hungarian nation. The situation of Hungarian minorities living in these countries is very different in each country, but especially after Hungary's accession to the European Union there has emerged a common appeal in these communities for obtaining Hungarian citizenship without moving to Hungary (the present law in force on Hungarian citizenship requires permanent residence).

The operators of present homepage have also initiated an online "colloquy" (Ankét) inviting the most distinguished Hungarian scholars working on minority issues. The papers incoming in reply to the questionnaire on "dual citizenship" will also be published on the website.

Most of the content of the homepage is in Hungarian, documents available in English can be found under "ANGOL".