One question: given the long (unhappily) shared history of Slovakia and Hungary, what kind of relations do the two countries have these days?
The governments have a relatively good relationship but also because of problems swept under the carpet. I'll give a longer reply after the Czech Republic-USA match (or in its pause). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
There are three bones of contention which are largely swept under the rug: the issue of the Gabčíkovo(Bős)-Nagymaros hydro-electric dams, the Beneš Decrets, and the Hungarian state's relationship with the ethnic Hungarian minority in Slovakia.
The most tightly knit of these, the Gabčíkovo/Bős-Nagymaros project was a 'communist'-era technocrat nightmare to jointly build two dams along the section of the Danube that forms a border between the two countries, even though the area is flatland (the reservoir will fill up with silt) and an aquifier (groundwater levels and contaminations change). After mass protests towards the end of the eighties (which contributed to regime change), Hungary first pulled out from the project. Czechoslovakia however saw that as breaking the treaty, and for its part pushed on with a modified Gabčíkovo/Bős project, diverting the Danube from the border for it in 1992. As it happens with megaprojects, it also became an object of national prestige.
The issue then went to the International Court in Hague, which cared less about environmental arguments than legal ones, and made the from their viewpoint Solomonic decision of basically granting the status quo, i.e. Gabčíkovo/Bős can remain, Nagymaros must not be built, and setting terms to solve outlying issues. Meanwhile, the hapless conservative government of Hungary was replaced by a post-reformed-communist--liberal coalition, in which the same old former Party member technocrats thought that they can steamroll public opinion and wake Nagymaros from the dead. This was one factor that cost them the 1998 elections. Having learnt the lesson and ignoring their still loud technocrats, it was again a Socialist government (back in power in 2002) who'd finally order the renaturalisation of well-progressed works at Nagymaros. Since 1998, there are continuing bilateral talks with Slovakia about solving outstanding issues, progressing at snail's pace if at all. (For a Slovakian viewpoint on the issue, read here; but I have to counter just one point: ecological problems weren't unspecified, they were in a joint scientific study by a US university, WWF and the Hungarian Academy.)
The Beneš Decrets were IIRC some hundred decrets by the post-WWII Czechoslovak government, only some of which are bones of contention -- those that declared the collective guilt of ethnic Germans and Hungarians and on these grounds ordered their expropiation and deportation. This was executed with much less consequence against Hungarians than Germans (most ethnic-Hungarians could stay in the end). Nevertheless, the Decrets are still in effect, and are still used against former expellees suing in court. However, would they be repelled, the Slovakian state (and the Czech Republic) could face a massive wave of suits for reparations, which again wouldn't be fair (they themselves would be up for reparations for WWII after all). On the other hand, only nationalists dare to thematise the issue on both sides, rather than pursuing a final solution (e.g. repeal of statement of collective guilt by Slovakia and repeal of reparation rights by Hungary).
The Hungarian state -- ethnic Hungarians relationship is seen in Slovakia as messing in internal affairs, with a fear of separatism. Again it is nationalist politicians on both sides who speak up on the issue. The picture is complicated by the bad relationship of the Hungarian (nominal) centreleft governing forces and the Slovakian ethnic Hungarian organisations, and the good relationship of especially the nationalist wing of the latter and the Hungarian right-wing opposition.
Now I'm off to see Italy-Ghana. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Uh-oh, you remind me, years ago I got a two-volume Paul Lendvai book, and I still couldn't get myself to begin reading it...
I actually aborted my review half-way due to the match. First some clarifications to the first part, regarding the damned dam issue:
That the dam was a factor in the 1998 election loss was also because Hungarian nationalists, too, made it an issue, stealing it from environmentalists. The next right-wing government however did almost nothing in the dam issue. By "well-progressed works" I meant that the river was diverted around the planned dam site, but that back in the early nineties.
What I wanted to finish with was telling of the people. Relationship on that level is diverse. The "big picture" is one of blissful cultural isolation, by which I mean 99+% of people in Hungary (regrettably myself included) and surely 95+% of people with Slovak as mother tongue in Slovakia don't speak the others' language. However, tourism makes for a non-political connection: to a lesser part hisorical monuments like castles, and to a bigger part skiing sites attract people from Hungary, and providers increasingly aim for them, while I read just last week that Budapest became a tourist destination for Slovakians.
This contrasts with nationalists on both sides. However, the Slovakian nationalists vs. Hungarian-Hungarian nationalists is not important, not as the conflict inside Slovakia and the Slovakian-Hungarian--Hungarian-Hungarian relationship - and the interaction of these two relationships. I mean, the latter includes that when Hungarian nationalists from Slovakia and Hungary meet/communicate, they reinforce each others' paranoia and chauvinism by positive feedback; while the Slovakian nationalists use what becomes public of the latter in their overall rhetoric about ethnic-Hungarian organisations being traitors. You could call it an indirect Slovakian--Hungarian-Hugarian conflict.
I am not certain enough about people being mature Europeans to assume that the ratio of blissful ignorance, non-politised good relationship and nationalist paranoia won't change in the populations again (and if it does, the abovementioned indirect conflict will certainly turn direct). But both the EU and, well, ET could become vehicles for further lessening tensions both between governments and people. If the French and Germans could do it in half a century, why not reproduce that here? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
There were moves by Havel back in the nineties to push for an ex post repeal of the Benes decrees. They didn't get very far since the Czech nationalist demagogues objected, and the expellee circles dismissed any idea of anything other than an ex ante repeal - which for practical legal reasons is not a possibility. Similar concerns prevent the German government from formally renouncing all expellee material claims - way back when the constitutional court ruled that it would make the federal government liable for those claims. To make matters worse, the Lastungsausgleich which provided the expellees with a sliding compensation (from 90% of the first 2000 marks losses to 1% of above 1 million IIRC - would have to look it up to be certain) explicitly stated that these did not in any way constitute any reduction in the expellees' legal claims against the governments that expelled them. The whole question is moot since the expulsions were probably legal at the time, European courts don't have jurisdiction (happened before they were established), and would open up a Pandora's box of competing claims by countries harmed by Nazi Germany. Plus there's the question of the liability of the powers who approved the expulsions at Potsdam.
The current validity of laws stating collective guilt as legal footing is what should be a non-starter. If there is will, a clever compromise can be found, which may well be an ex post repeal, maybe even ex ante combined with some compensation -- as discussed in a recent thread, Paroubek warmed up the proposal to compensate Sudetengerman anti-fascists (with Klaus opposing). AEven some German/Austrian expellee organisations declared they forego the bulk of material claims, so compromise shouldn't be impossible.
If the governments won't do this, sooner or later, a well-prepared case focusing on a current application of the law (say one on citizenship) that went through all Czech (Slovak, Polish, German) instances [<- the main reason for the recent rejection of a Sudetengerman claim] will land at the European Court in Strasbourg, and then Pandora's box will definitely be opened. (As the expulsion of ethnic Hungarians was but a footnote of history compared to the expulsion of ethnic Germans, this is most likely to happen with a Czech case.)
(On main problem in this case is Czech historical amnesia -- France progressed more in recognising the extent of collaboration than the Czech Republic, while the pre-Munich Czech assimilation policies, Sudetengerman political symphaties, and the existence and scale of post-Munich political cleansings among Sudetengermans is virtually unknown, so a wide majority of Czech citizens and politicians has a rather warped view of what happened.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The operative word there is 'current' - i.e. an ex post repeal.
Even some German/Austrian expellee organisations declared they forego the bulk of material claims, so compromise shouldn't be impossible.
That's true of many of the BdV and Landsmannschaft leaders these days, including Erika Steinbach who has disassociated herself from Rudy Pawelka's Preussische Treuhand - the organization that seeks to get full compensation for material losses. True - but legally irrelevant. The claims are individual ones, nothing the expellee organizations say or agree to can change those individual claims. The German government can't make this sort of agreement unless it is prepared to pay in full or the courts change their minds (possible - courts generally shy away from decisions that would have disastrous practical effects, regardless of the legal merits, and bankrupting the government certainly qualifies as disastrous.)
On main problem in this case is Czech historical amnesia -- France progressed more in recognising the extent of collaboration than the Czech Republic, while the pre-Munich Czech assimilation policies, Sudetengerman political symphaties, and the existence and scale of post-Munich political cleansings among Sudetengermans is virtually unknown, so a wide majority of Czech citizens and politicians has a rather warped view of what happened
Yup. And as a relevant footnote the two most prominent expellee leaders of the seventies and eighties were themselves not too fond of the Nazis. Herbert Hupka was half Jewish. Herbert Czaja was an active opponent of the Nazis from the beginning - fled to Poland in 1933 and worked for a leading anti-Nazi ethnic German activist. Later during the war he was peripherally involved with the July conspiracy.
This is not entirely correct. On one hand, these organisations represent a great many of the potential claimants -- I don't know about Bavaria, but in Austria, majority f members support the leaders in such positions. On the other hand, a significant part of material claims would have been collectively, communally (or state) owned property. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
They support that position but just because someone believes that there should be a settlement awarding only symbolic compensation doesn't mean they won't take more if it is suddenly available. The organizations have no authority to renounce that right on behalf of their members (let alone the majority of expellees and their descendants who are not members). Nobody does. People can oppose a policy as harmful to the general good yet still act on behalf of their own individual good if that policy is enacted.
On the other hand, a significant part of material claims would have been collectively, communally (or state) owned property.
Both Czechoslovakia and Nazi Germany were based on private property, there was more than enough to bankrupt any state that is suddenly made liable for compensating the expellees in full for their losses. Not that I can figure out how you'd calculate those losses - at 1944 price levels, adjusted for inflation or not, with interest, at current value of the property ...?
