Déjà Vu: Hungary’s Roma, Habsburg Legacy, and EU’s Eastern Enlargement

In July 1993, the US-based “Human Rights Watch” published a report on the human rights situation of Roma in Hungary after fall of Communism entitled “Struggling for Ethnic Identity: The Gypsies of Hungary”. It was based on a mission, conducted by Gyorgy Feher in January of 1993. The report presents briefly the history of Roma in Hungary, which introduces the reader to the topic. Without knowing this history, it is difficult to understand the specifics of Hungarian Roma policy and its European dimensions, so here first selected parts of the report will be quoted before proceeding to the substance of the analysis.  

Roma expelled from Western Europe settle in the Carpathian basin  

The first major wave of Romas appeared in Hungary during the reign of King Zsigmond (Sigismund 1387-1437), the majority of whom continued to migrate to western Europe. Over the course of the next century and a half, as they were systematically expelled from the western lands, Romas began to settle in the Carpathian basin.  

Roma enjoyed a measure of internal autonomy till the late 17th century 

During the Ottoman occupation of Hungary, spanning some 150 years till the late 17th century, Romas had a measure of autonomy and began to specialize in certain sedentary trades, working as blacksmiths, weapon-makers, horse traders, carpenters and barbers. Little is known of Roma culture of the period or of Roma relations with the non-Romas (the “gadzikane” in Romany or “gaje”), though it appears that segregation into ghettoes was widespread.  

After the defeat of the Ottomans the Habsburgs initiated an aggressive assimilationist campaign

Subsequent to the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, the Habsburg monarchy initiated an aggressive assimilationist campaign. This was based on a mixture of rewards, such as residency and trade permits, and punishments, notably the prohibition of the itinerant lifestyle (1761 edict of Maria-Theresa), a ban of the use of Roma names (1761) and the Romany language (by Joseph II in 1783) and forced adoptions of Roma children by non-Roma families. 

Fierce “magyarization” policy in Post-Trianon Hungary 

Post-Trianon Hungary initiated a fierce “magyarization” policy, pressuring “sedentary” Romas to become fully assimilated and taking draconian police measures to deport Romas whose Hungarian citizenship could not be verified. 

The exact number of Hungarian Roma murdered during the Holocaust remain unknown  

Little is known about the fate of Hungary’s Romas during the Holocaust (or “Porajmos”) most of whom, akin to Hungary’s Jewish population, were deported to various concentration camps and exterminated after Germany’s 1944 invasion of Hungary. The number of European and Hungarian Romas murdered remains unknown; some maintain that around a quarter of Europe’s one million Romas were exterminated while others estimate the figure to have been closer to 500,000.  

Hungarian Communists continued the assimilation but failed to eradicate the anti-Roma prejudices of majority 

In Post-war Communist Hungary he government launched an ambitious slum and ghetto eradication program in 1964, as a result of which the number of slum dwellings fell from over 50,000 to around 5,000 by 1984, with a corresponding drop in occupants from around 250,000 (of whom well over three-quarters were Romas) to around 40,000. Slum-clearance was supplemented by the supply of credit for new constructions of approximately 20,000 family dwellings, which the government envisioned as facilitating Roma assimilation into their non-Roma surroundings. As the assimilationist ideology waned in the 1980s, deliberate ghettoization occasionally resurfaced as a response to the “Gypsy problem.” 

Fall of Communism led to explosion of Anti-Gypsyism in Hungary 

Since the fall of the communist regime the economic situation of Hungary’s Romas has worsened dramatically… Widespread anti-Roma attitudes have led to Roma mistrust of the police. “I don’t trust the police. They are afraid of the Gypsies and they rather permit the skinheads to beat the Gypsies,” said one Roma in a recent interview. “The police treat us all as criminals anyway, so there is no point asking them for help,” another young Roma commented to Helsinki Watch…  

Recriminations about police reluctance to intervene when Romas are assailed have been surfacing ever since September 1990, when some 150 skinheads launched a pogrom-like attack on a Roma populated section of the town of Eger. The police arrived only some four hours into the attack, did not notify their superior officers and failed to seek reinforcement for three days even though the town was gripped by hysteria as the victimized Romas began to strike back (by beating up some locals mistakenly identified as skinheads).  

In the so-called “great skinhead trial” of 1992, the chief prosecutor decided to indict 48 skinheads for hate crimes against Roma but the court modified the charges to the routinely applied combined offenses of hooliganism, breach of peace and slander.   

This is part of the Human Rights Watch report about Hungary from 1993 but then the country was in the process of democratisation and was still outside the EU (here we will not dwell on the role of the Roma elites, that is a topic for a separate analysis).  

Hungary is set to receive another €22 billion in cohesion funds for 2021-2027, while Roma struggle for survival 

Today, 32 years later, Hungary is a member of the EU and NATO, it has absorbed tens of billions of euros, but civil society there has been silenced. There is no one to say what exactly is happening to the local Roma in 2025. Even human rights organisations, originally set up in Budapest, now shy away from reporting on Roma rights violations in this country, preferring to focus on safer places outside the EU, such as the Western Balkans.

The Open Society Institute, which was headquartered in Budapest from 1984 to 2018 and initiated the Decade of Roma Inclusion together with the World Bank, left Hungary blaming the failure of the initiative to participating national governments, which in turn put the blame on Roma themselves. Private donors are now busy with other priorities, but there is no state to intervene on behalf of the Roma, and they are left at the mercy of the Hungarian ruling classes, who have benefited generously from EU membership to consolidate their power (just like the old Hungarian aristocracy under the Habsburgs).  

After Hungary’s accession to the EU in 2004, Hungarian politicians were given access to EU funds and appointed to senior positions in the European Commission which allowed them to exert a significant influence on shaping European Roma policies far beyond the borders of Hungary. 

All major EU initiatives regarding Roma in the last 20 years have been related to Hungary 

• From 2004 to 2024, Hungary had 5 European Commissioners. Among them László Andor was Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2010-2014) during the France’s expulsions of Bulgarian and Romanian Roma in 2010, which instead of sanctions on France for violating EU law, resulted in Eastern European governments being “rewarded” with even more money to curb Roma migrations.  

• The Hungarian citizen, Lívia Járóka, was the first MEP of Roma origin from Post-Communist Europe, elected twice from Fidesz party list – from 2004 to 2014 and from 2017 to 2022 (also Vice-President of the European Parliament). That is, the MEP who spoke the longest on behalf of the Roma in Brussels was, actually, Viktor Orban’s representative. 

• The Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015) was conceived at a conference hosted by the Prime Minister of Hungary Péter Medgyessy, held in Budapest in 2003 – “Roma in an Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future”. Hungary played a key role in the overall planning of this initiative and in negotiations with other countries to join the Decade. 

• The first EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies was adopted in 2011 as part of the programme of the first Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which was expected to propose an effective Roma policy to the Commission following the scandal with France the previous year, i.e. a task that was entrusted to the Hungarian government. Ironically, it was the government of Viktor Orbán.  

“Habsburg results” of European Roma policy? 

It seems as if the leaders of other EU Member States left the Roma issue almost entirely in the hands of Hungarian and to a lesser degree of Czech politicians, probably believing that they are the best “experts on Gypsies”, since their countries were once part of the Habsburg Empire. However, the sociological surveys show that the nations of Central Europe are very intolerant towards minorities and foreigners. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the lack of much progress with EU Roma inclusion Strategies by 2025. If in the 21st century the policies bequeathed by  the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa (1717 – 1780) are still being implemented in Europe under the guise of “integration”, it is logical that the EU will end up with “Habsburg results.

” The Austrian emperors Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II wanted to turn the Roma into “new Hungarians” who should be deprived of their Romani language, culture and identity, and become fully assimilated into Hungarian nation. Among the many restrictions imposed on the Roma were the prohibition of electing their own leaders, speaking their own language, intermarrying with each other, and raising their own children as Roma; instead, the children were taken away and given to foster Hungarian families.   

But that was in the past, what about today? Decades have passed since the countries with the largest Roma populations in Eastern Europe were admitted to the EU, during which time these countries received EU funds and EU guidelines for Roma inclusion. A whole new generation of Roma has grown up during this period. How many of these young Roma coming out of Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Bulgarian schools know the Romani language? Where are the Roma leaders taking political decisions at EU and national level? What has happened to the Roma identity? Because if, as a result of this “inclusion”, Roma children coming out of school, feel more Hungarian than Hungarians, and more Czech than Czechs, then Maria Theresa is on her way to achieving her goal – to make the Gypsies disappear.     

The EU’s Eastern enlargement brings problems that it does not seem ready to solve

In a 2016 interview, former chairman of the European Roma and Travellers Forum Rudko Kawczynski said that from the beginning, the EU had a nice vision of unity, open borders, democracy and human rights, but after accepting the new countries from Eastern Europe, the EU failed to export its ideals there, rather it imported from these countries intolerance, racism, Anti-Gypsyism and corruption. 

But if Brussels is incapable of dealing with Eastern Europe, as Kawczynski argues, should it continue to expand eastwards? The risk is that this time, in addition to racism, it may also invite war. Maybe it is time for a more sober assessment of how the countries of the former Habsburg and Socialist space, with all their unresolved ethnic and social problems, endanger the future of European Union.  

As for the Roma, it is clear that no war in history has ever been started because of them, but they have always been the victims of wars caused by someone else. And yet, there is hope that flashes of political thinking and foresight are beginning to appear, albeit with great difficulty, given the historical burden on the Roma psyche as a result of the long legacy of persecution and marginalization, which has forced the Roma to bow down much more often than to stand up.