Hungarian Party Mediates Talks on Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Slovakia

On Tuesday, mayors and farmers of municipalities in Slovakia affected by foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) held a meeting in Holice (Egyházgelle) mediated by the Hungarian Alliance. The need for the meeting was brought to the attention of Agriculture Minister Richard Takáč last week by the party’s president László Gubík and vice-president Péter Őry.

The Hungarian party leaders met with Richard Takáč last Wednesday, interpreting to the minister the farmers’ experiences with the disease. They stressed the need for credible communication of information, with which the minister fully agreed, sk7.hu reported.

Later, Minister Richard Takáč told the Hungarian-language Slovak portal that he considered it important to meet directly with the region’s municipal leaders. In his statement, he welcomed the fact that farmers in the region with a majority of Hungarian-speaking people (Žitný ostrov / Csallóköz) used this opportunity to communicate directly in order to fully understand each other.

The politician added that

the government is open to making priority information available in Hungarian.

Péter Őry, the vice-president of the Hungarian Alliance (also the mayor of Štvrtok na Ostrove [Csallóközcsütörtök]), the main organizer of the Tuesday meeting, said that they had gone to the ministry the previous week with the not hidden aim of informing the minister of what the farmers needed. Among these suggestions was the proposal to hold a meeting with municipal leaders. The ministry soon set a date for Tuesday and started to address the participants. Tuesday’s meeting was attended by around thirty participants.

Those who came to Holice from among the mayors of the region were able to participate in a very good, albeit closed-door, discussion, during which they approached the issues not on an emotional but a rational basis,”

Péter Őry told sk7.hu after the meeting.

The following topics were discussed:

the control of the virus;
the possible rescue of non-infected animals;
the hotspots;
what to expect in the next period;
how compensation will be paid – first of all to small farmers;
what will happen to employees who earned their income from large farms;
and how to restart farming, a basic sector in the region.

Péter Őry noted that all the questions asked had been answered frankly and openly, and that if the participants did not know the answer to something, they promised to look into it.

Lajos Iván, mayor of Holice, the host of the event, said in response to a question from the Slovakian portal that he was grateful to Minister Richard Takáč for allowing the testing and the establishment of a quarantine to begin. Residents have also been made aware of the importance of registering all private farms, he added. “The testing also calmed everyone, as the residents could see that it was not about killing animals, but about good intentions,” the mayor pointed out.

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