AS ANYONE who has committed the heinous crime of clinking beer glasses to say cheers in a bar in Budapest can testify, Hungary is a land brimming with nationalist sensitivities. For the record, this particular idiosyncrasy goes back to 1848 when the Austrians crushed a national uprising and celebrated the impending execution of upstart Hungarian leaders with a veritable cacophony of beer glass clinking. Hungarian nationalists pledged to observe a self-imposed ban on the practice for 150 years. But almost a decade after the statute of limitations expired it is still considered deeply insulting. So, to the stag party contingent, you have been warned. But what, you might ask, has got your blogger going off on this one?



To cut a long story short, Hungarian nationalists are up in arms (again) about goings-on in northern neighbour Slovakia which has a Hungarian minority numbering around 550,000 or 10% of the population. Last week, the Slovak parliament passed a motion upholding the so-called Benes Decrees—the rulings passed by former Czechoslovak President Eduard Benes after World War II associated with the expulsion of more than 2.5 million ethnic Germans (mainly from the Czech lands) and around 100,000 ethnic Hungarians (mainly from Slovakia). The latest move was initiated by Jan Slota, the colourful leader of the Slovak National Party who, among other escapades, was once caught on tape in a slivovica (plum brandy) induced rant encouraging his fellow countrymen to “get in their tanks and flatten Budapest”.

Anyway, Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom has described the purely symbolic move upholding the legitimacy of the decrees as a “slap in the face” and Hungary once again hums to the tune of nationalist outrage.

Mr Slota and his fellow Slovak nationalists are bad news indeed, usually finding it difficult to work out which national group they hate more: the Hungarians or the country’s several hundred thousand strong Roma minority. (Mr. Slota also once said that the best solution for the Roma was “a small courtyard and a long whip”.) His party’s inclusion in the Social Democrat led Slovak government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, which came to power in 2006, caused an understandable storm of protest across Europe not least, of course, in Hungary.

The problem with the usual reporting of this dispute is that too often it is the Slovak nationalists that get slammed while the Hungarians manage to portray themselves as innocent victims. Now, don’t get me wrong, the nationalists in Slovakia deserve the kicking they routinely get. But Hungarians can hardly blame others for being concerned when they constantly bang on about the settlement agreed by the allies after World War II. (Incidentally, they never shut up about the outcome of World War I either in which they also backed the losing side. Don’t, whatever you do, mention the 1920 Treaty of Trianon under whose terms imperial Hungary lost vast swathes of territory.)

Resentful nationalist undercurrents criss-cross the mainstream in Hungarian political life. In Slovakia, they are largely confined to the fringes (though the Slovak National Party’s inclusion in government is worrying). I’m not suggesting that anyone ducks the issue by lazily concluding that they’re both as bad as each other. What I am saying is that a more balanced appreciation of central European national disputes would not go amiss.

Robin Shepherd is a senior fellow at Chatham House.