On Wednesday, Istvan Szavay, a member of parliament for the Hungarian Opposition party Jobbik, opened his office in the southwest Slovak town of Dunajska Streda. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico as well as Parliamentary Chairman Peter Pellegrini on Thursday made a call on the Hungarian MP to close down the office immediately. If the so-called office will continue operating, Peter Pellegrini said that he would consider initiating a legislative change in order to ban MPs from other countries opening offices in Slovakia. Pellegrini views the opening of the office as an attempt to destabilise the current constructive dialogue between Slovakia and Hungary. According to him, Slovakia will pursue good relations with Hungary notwithstanding this "provocation". "We won't let [the relations] be spoiled with such individual moves by extremists", added Pellegrini.
The Hungarian Opposition MP Istvan Szavay refused to close the office down. "As a member of the Hungarian Parliament, I've sworn that I'll represent the interests of all Hungarians", he said in his reaction to the call of the Slovak parliamentary chairman. According to him, there may be politicians in Hungary who allow Fico to dictate to them to what extent they can represent Hungarians' interests. "I don't belong to this group". Isztvan Szavay then went on to lambaste Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban for giving up Hungarians' interests in the "Upper Lands" (historic name for Slovakia as part of the former Kingdom of Hungary) in exchange for "economic benefits and future positive projects".
Foreign affairs ministers of Slovakia and Hungary, Miroslav Lajcak and Peter Szijjarto respectively, have spoken by telephone about the issue. The ministers concurred that such a "provocation" won't affect the dynamically developing cooperation between the two countries. Peter Szijjarto said that this step certainly wasn't motivated by national but partisan interests. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry in a written statement described the opening of the office as an "unnecessary provocation" causing damage not only to Hungarian-Slovak relations. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reacted in a similar vein.
