Romania Confronts Transylvanian Separatism
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Subject: Romania Confronts Transylvanian Separatism
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Romania Confronts Transylvanian Separatism
STRATFOR's
Global Intelligence Update
June 9, 1999
Romania Confronts Transylvanian Separatism
Summary:
Romanian President Emil Constantinescu has rejected the call -
contained in a document circulating among intellectuals in the
Transylvania region of western Romania - for Transylvanian
self-government within a federal Romanian state. The devolution
argument, while framed in economic terms, has clear ethnic overtones
as Transylvania is home to a large population of ethnic Hungarians.
The Transylvania question is but one of the ethnic minority issues
that continue to plague the new NATO members and aspiring NATO members
of Eastern Europe. With NATO seen as effectively sanctioning the
devolution, if not independence, of an ethnically Albanian Kosovo from
Serbia, keeping these other problems in check will be an increasingly
difficult task.
Analysis:
During a visit to Mures and Teleorman counties in the Transylvania
region of western Romania on June 5, Romanian President Emil
Constantinescu responded to a document reportedly circulating among
intellectuals in Transylvania that calls for a federal structure for
Romania. The document reportedly asserts that, as Transylvania is
more advanced economically than the rest of Romania, it could be
integrated more rapidly into the European Union. The document argues
for the devolution of Transylvania and the Banat region, with the
establishment of a regional government and parliament. According to
the proposal, Bucharest would then only deal with foreign policy and
defense issues related to the Transylvania and Banat regions.
In his reaction to the document, Constantinescu said he would never
accept "ideas leading to the sovereignty, unity, or indivisibility of
a Romanian territory." He stressed that his administration cannot
accept "any form of federal governing system or regional-type
legislative administrations, and we do not accept separatist ideas
running counter to the interests of the Romanian nation." He added,
"intellectual adventures of this kind will cost the people of this
country dear." Constantinescu was echoed three days later by the main
party of the governing coalition, the PNT-CD Christian Democratic
National Peasants' Party. The party's spokesman, Remus Opris, said on
June 7 that the President and the whole country had to "watch so that
constitutional provisions regarding national, sovereign, independent,
unitary, and indivisible state" were not attacked either from inside
or outside of the state. Still, while ruling out a federated Romania,
Constantinescu did accept the possibility of administrative autonomy
for the region, noting that a juridical framework already exists to
support such a move.
While sources claim that 80 percent of the document's signatories are
ethnic Romanians, and the document reportedly stems from the 1998
manifesto "I am fed up with Romania," written by Romanian separatist
Sabin Gherman, any suggestion of Transylvanian devolution immediately
raises the issue of the region's Hungarian population. Like Serbia's
Vojvodina and sections of Slovakia and Ukraine, Transylvania is home
to a large ethnic Hungarian minority, and has been recently
experiencing increased ethnic tensions.
Anti-Hungarian demonstrations erupted on June 5 and 6 in the
Transylvanian city of Cluj, following a victory by the Romanian soccer
team over the visiting Hungarian team. The mayor of Cluj, Gheorghe
Funar, who is also the head of the nationalist Party of Alliance for
the Romanians' Unity, reportedly rallied the crowds with extremist
anti-Hungarian comments, sparking a demonstration of several thousand
people in front of the Hungarian Consulate in Cluj. The demonstrators
shouted slogans such as "we will defend Transylvania" and "out with
the Hungarians from the country." Scattered incidents of vandalism by
Romanians against Hungarian properties also reportedly occurred in
large Transylvanian cities.
For their part, Hungarian nationalists are keying off of NATO's
actions on behalf of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and are calling for a
broad revision of borders in the region. On the 79th anniversary of
the signing of the Trianon peace treaty - which redrew the map of
Central Europe in such way that a large number of Hungarian nationals
remained on Romanian, Slovak, and Serbian territories - supporters of
the radical Hungarian National front openly called for a "peaceful
revision of the borders and a Hungarian state of the Carpathian
basin." Hungarian political groups, including six parliamentary
parties, also issued a statement on June 6 backing autonomy for the
Serbian region of Vojvodina. Inside Romania and Slovakia, ethnic
Hungarian parties have been limiting their public activities to
political fights for bilingual government in areas of greater than 20
percent ethnic minorities, but the independence calls form radicals
within Hungary have not gone unheard.
With the conflict in Yugoslavia apparently leading to NATO-sanctioned
and guaranteed autonomy for ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, radical
nationalists in Eastern Europe seem encouraged to push their own
similar agendas. As countries like Hungary attempt to settle into
Western politico-military structures, and others like Romania and
Slovakia seek admittance into NATO and the European Union, these
cross-border disputes will become ever more critical. There are a
great number of maps of Europe waiting to be redrawn, and a host of
groups eager to start drawing. With Hungary in NATO and NATO heading
into Kosovo, it is too late to talk about keeping these problems
outside Western Europe. Pandora's box is opening, and unless these
problems are addressed politically and economically, they may, like
Kosovo, express themselves militarily. Constantinescu's willingness
to discuss greater administrative autonomy for Transylvania may be a
first step in the right direction.
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