Kelemen and his party to sign agreement supporting Niculescu

Hunor Kelemen, the leader of Transylvania's Hungarians, announced today that the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) will sign a six-month support agreement with the Niculescu government.

At a press conference held in parliament, he said the following, according to G4Media:

"Energy prices have risen and will keep rising, and the most vulnerable people need the government's help. All this is pushing us toward voting in favor of this government and giving the cabinet led by Luca Niculescu the chance to do what it thinks is best, and of course to show an alternative to the government that was ousted in May. This is our decision. We will sign a six-month support agreement with Prime Minister Luca Niculescu, running until April or May."

According to Kelemen, the text of the agreement consists of short, simple provisions, and will be made public after it is signed.

"The provisions are extremely simple. There is nothing unusual in it: it concerns the budget adjustment, the budget, the deficit, and the direction that must be maintained so that we don't run into further trouble from a fiscal standpoint. Of course, there are two points concerning national minorities, the Hungarian minority, education and rights. These say nothing more than that everything we have achieved so far in mother-tongue education and in other areas of rights will be preserved."

On his own Facebook page, however, Hunor Kelemen described the agreement as follows:

"We have signed a political agreement with Prime Minister-designate Luca Niculescu. We are supporting the installation of the government under clear conditions: we are asking for our minority rights to be respected and for Hungarian-language education to be supported. We want our children to be able to study in Hungarian from kindergarten through university, and for there to be enough money, teachers and Hungarian-language textbooks for that. The government must also support the operation of our Hungarian cultural institutions. The RMDSZ will not have ministers in the government. In parliament, we will support the government's work on the issues and under the conditions we have agreed upon. We have already agreed that we will support the adjustment of this year's budget and the adoption of the 2027 state budget. In both cases, we insist that our communities have the money they need to function. Next year's budget must also support investment, so that the economy can grow stronger. What matters to us is that the country functions, that solutions are found for people's problems, and that local communities receive the support they need."

The differences between the two texts clearly show that the RMDSZ is pursuing two kinds of communication: one aimed at national political actors, the other at its own voters, the Hungarian minority, in the hope that the latter are less likely to read the Romanian-language press. The most striking difference is that the post addressed to Hungarians places heavy emphasis on certain minority rights and on Hungarian communities gaining access to resources. From the text quoted by G4Media, on the other hand, it may seem that Hunor Kelemen is primarily concerned with the country's problems, with the minority issue being secondary by comparison.

Either way, the RMDSZ is preparing to vote in favor of the Niculescu government, which, although it is set to be formed with 12 PSD ministers, the press for some reason continues to call the Niculescu government. The government program contains references to minority rights (we wrote about this here): it states, for instance, that in the event of mergers of municipalities and counties, Hungarians' interests must not be harmed, and that their proportional representation must be preserved even if the size of parliament is reduced. It is interesting that these specific issues, which affect the Hungarian minority differently from the majority, do not appear in the agreement, and Hunor Kelemen does not mention them either. Let's translate this agreement into plain language: let there be money for the till, and don't mess with what we already have. That's the sum of our representation. Does that work for you?

Ugar