Hungarian Citizenship and Franchise Politics and their Effects on the Hungarian-Romanian Relations

The chapter discusses, first, the adoption of the Fundamental Law and granting of citizenship and voting rights as the culmination of an ongoing attempt to institutionalize a form of extra-territorial Hungarian nation. Second, we will evaluate the Hungarian policy of external citizenship and the connected enfranchisement in the light of the principles adopted by the Venice Commission and we will discuss the implications of the Hungarian policy for the neighbourly relations between Hungary and Romania. Today both countries are EU members and it can be argued that currently EU Member States’ nationalities mostly serve only as access points to the status of EU citizenship. However, EU citizenship is derived from Member States’ nationalities. Therefore, every piece of national citizenship legislation, such as the special preferential naturalization scheme has an impact on the EU citizenship regime.