Govt official: Measures to protect Ukrainian cultural heritage should consider Hungarian cultural rights
Measures to protect Ukrainian cultural heritage should also take the “cultural rights” of the Hungarian minority into account, a deputy state secretary of the culture and innovation ministry said in Warsaw on Tuesday, after attending an informal meeting of EU culture ministers.
Máté Vincze said in a statement that the two-day meeting focused on preserving cultural heritage with a special focus on Ukraine, offering opportunities to young artists, and the EU’s new Cultural Compass initiative.
Commenting on restoring Ukraine’s cultural heritage, Vincze said that while most member states “already see Ukraine’s EU accession as a value”, Hungary will hold a referendum on the matter
Meanwhile, Hungarian artists’ organisations have accepted many Ukrainian refugees, offering them employment or opportunities to perform, and Hungarian museums are cooperating with Ukrainian counterparts to preserve cultural treasures, he said.
“At the same time, it is important that restoration can only start once there is peace in Ukraine, and so peace must be the foremost goal for everyone,” he said.
He also stressed that Ukraine “must do for achieving the accession.” The protection of Ukrainian cultural heritage must also include minorities, the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia (Kárpátalja) among them, he said. “Their cultural and language rights must be guaranteed.”
Regarding the EU Cultural Compass project, the deputy state secretary said the initiative will be supporting joint European cultural projects with funding and good practices.
He lamented that “certain member states see that, too, as a political tool, and trying to push their own political communication and agenda.” Hungary, on the other hand, “wants a professional programme based on cultural exchange programmes and access to culture,” he said.
“This project must not become a political tool, much less a tool of discrimination,” he said, pointing to the Erasmus and Horizon programmes, in which he said “Hungarian students were being discriminated against for political reasons.”
read also: Ukraine’s EU referendum in Hungary: why is Orbán’s costly push worth it?