(Repeats story from Tuesday)
* Hungary parliament seen passing citizenship law Wednesday
* Ethnic Hungarians to get easy access to citizenship
* Slovakia says plans tough countermeasures
By Krisztina Than and Martin Santa
BUDAPEST, May 25 (Reuters) - Hungary is expected to pass a
law on Wednesday that will make it easier for ethnic Hungarians
in Central Europe to get Hungarian citizenship but could trigger
countermeasures from Slovakia, which strongly opposes it.
Granting dual citizenship to more than two million ethnic
Hungarians living in neighbouring states has become a symbolic
issue for Hungary's incoming centre-right government, which won
a strong mandate in parliamentary elections last month.
But the plan has shattered already fragile relations with
Slovakia, home to more than half a million Hungarians, and
raised tensions there ahead of an election on June 12.
Analysts said if the law is passed, it could lead to a
lengthy legal dispute between the two countries even though the
legislation is in line with relevant European Union (EU) rules.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose leftist SMER is a
favourite to form a new government after the June vote, had said
the citizenship plan was a "security threat" to Slovakia.
The Slovak government will hold an extraordinary meeting on
Tuesday to debate a draft law designed to strip people of their
Slovak citizenship if they apply for a second citizenship in any
other state.
Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister-designate Zsolt Semjen
dismissed Slovak concerns on Tuesday as "hysteria", saying it
was part of the election campaigning there.
"We cannot make practising our most natural rights dependent
on what (head of Slovak nationalist party SNS) Jan Slota or Fico
come up with," Semjen said in a television broadcast.
SYMBOLIC GESTURE
Hungary plans to allow ethnic Hungarians to apply for
citizenship without requiring a stay in Hungary if they have
Hungarian ancestry, and speak Hungarian, but the legislation
does not automatically grante them voting rights.
Parliament is expected to vote on the law on Wednesday,
which will be applied from January 2011, when Hungary takes over
the rotating EU presidency.
"Ensuring Hungarian citizenship for Hungarians living beyond
the borders is a basic part of identity," Semjen said, adding
the statute was based on the Romanian example and conformed with
EU laws.
"It's very important for the new Hungarian government to
provide this symbolic gesture towards Hungarians beyond the
borders," political analyst Zoltan Kiszelly said.
"The conflict is due to the Slovak election campaign ... if
Slota's party is in the coalition again after the election this
will evolve into a lasting conflict, if not, then the intensity
of it could subside," he added.
"But we can expect a dragging international legal dispute."
Fico has said Slovakia will turn to the European Commission
and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) to explain its concerns.
The two ex-communist states repeatedly have sparred over the
treatment of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, most recently
about a new language law. []
There are Hungarians living in Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine,
Romania, and Austria whose ancestors lost Hungarian citizenship
as a result of the peace treaty ending World War One.
In another symbolic gesture, the new Hungarian government
has submitted a proposal to parliament to name June 4, the
anniversary of the Trianon treaty signed after the war, as a day
of national unity.
"I fully support it (dual citizenship). It's an important
administrative element of belonging together," Laszlo Szundi, a
pensioner in Budapest, said.
"Those who got stuck beyond the borders have suffered a lot
and for them this is a moral reward."
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Martin Santa in Bratislava)
