THE GENERAL SITUATION OF SERBIAN NATIONAL MINORITY IN HUNGARY

Abstract

As we can see through the above analysis, the situation in certain fields has different character towards the life in the Serbian community. One of the biggest concerns is assuming that Hungary has changing its attitudes towards minorities. In contrast to the changes during nineties, when Hungary made huge efforts to join the COE, EU and NATO, and when minority policy was strongly promoted, today there is an impression that for present “national oriented” government, minorities do not represent an area of importance. Namely, focus is mainly on the Hungarian minority in neighboring countries, which the State has helped profusely and which is the primary interest of the authorities. Minorities are not present in public, in public discourse and they are subordinate to the new centralized will, however, this new centralized will does not have an anti-minority character at the moment. Minorities got an opportunity to have parliamentary spokesman and to widen the range of its autonomous institutions. Also funding of Serbian high school in Budapest has been increased. Therefore, we can see the positive effect of legal changes on Serbian community life if we take into account factors such as previous cultural heritage, migration waves and strong willingness of Serbian community members, to survive and keep their identities, without which regime and legal changes would not mean much.