Sen. Corlatean, after visit of President of Hungary: Romanian state institutions, unprofessional and weak

Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee in the Romanian Senate Titus Corlatean told on Friday a press conference of Social Democratic Party (PSD) Dambovita, in reference to the recent visit of the President of Hungary, Katalin Novak, to our country, that the institutions of the Romanian state were "unprofessional and weak".

"It was a visit handled in an extremely deficient manner at the political and politico-diplomatic level in the Romanian state. The Romanian state institutions, in my opinion, were unprofessional and weak in managing this visit, because there are some rules on the matter. Especially when you are dealing with the visit of a newly elected president and especially in a bilateral relationship such as that between Romania and Hungary, with a certain history. Such a visit, the first visit abroad by the President of Hungary after her election, took place in Romania. It could not take place before there was an official visit, according to the rules, with a reception by the President of Romania," said Corlatean.

"This visit was welcome to take place on the territory of Romania, but in compliance of the rules, with a notification and an agreement of official visit or at least a working one, with a reception at Cotroceni [Presidential Palace], by President Klaus Iohannis and after that it could also have a private component. This has not occurred and, unfortunately, the supervision is primarily political, and here the top responsibility lies with the Romanian Presidency and President Iohannis, who allowed this private visit to take place in Transylvania with a set of symbols, some of which bothered us," said Titus Corlatean.

He argued that the leadership in Bucharest should have conveyed, through diplomatic channels, that the visit was inopportune.

"Such a visit, in the manner in which it was conceived and designed and notified, should have been communicated from Bucharest to Budapest on the correct, diplomatic, discreet channels, as inappropriate. Or, the Romanian state acted wrongly allowing a visit in which some issues that are deeply disturbing for the Romanian nation and for the Romanian state were accomplished. When someone comes to Romania and claims from the level of the presidential position in Budapest that he is the president of all Hungarians and that she represents all Hungarians everywhere, including Hungarians who are citizens of Romania and live in Romania, it is unacceptable from a political point of view, and she should have received an appropriate reply," said Titus Corlatean.

"Other things happened, such as the award by a Hungarian foundation of two Romanian citizens of Hungarian ethnicity who were convicted by the Romanian judiciary for acts of terrorism, people who prepared an attack in the context of December 1 at that time, in order to put an explosive device during the parade of the Romanian military. (...) Two persons convicted of terrorism were awarded in Romania, without the intervention of the Romanian state institutions. It is a totally unacceptable thing and the Romanian Presidency and the institutions that were supposed to manage this situation are guilty of weakness and ignorance," Titus Corlatean further said. AGERPRES