Volume 21, Issue 1-5, March 2017
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF HUNGARIAN-CROATIAN POLITICAL RELATIONS AND CROSS-BORDER CO-OPERATIONS
Authors: Szilárd Rácz
Abstract: The objective of the study is to present the main features of Hungarian-Croatian political relations and cross-border co-operations with a focus on the past 25 years. The study will discuss the various eras and specifics of Hungarian-Croatian political relations, the features of the borderland and cross-border relations, the spatial structural and infrastructural bases of the co-operation and the hard and soft factors of relations. The maintenance of the historically rooted relations – eight centuries of personal union, a rare example of a millennium of peaceful coexistence in Central Eastern Europe is more or less visible. Notwithstanding, coexistence between the two nationalities did not transcend the religious and cultural sphere, in most respects they only shared a common territory with each other. During the past 25 years, both Hungary and Croatia have witnessed a profound change in their perception of borders and neighbourhood relations. A new period began with Croatia becoming an autonomous state, the era of state-building characterised by inward orientation. Croatia has embarked on the road towards Euro-Atlantic Integration as a symbol of its new orientation at the turn of the millennium, which exerted a strong impact on the perception of borders and effective co-operation, while there has been a gradual deepening of Hungarian-Croatian relations. A period was concluded with the EU accession of Croatia, henceforth co-operations are established between two EU member states. This, however, does not imply positive practices in all cases. The MOL-INA affair transcending the internal corporate sphere severely damaged interstate political relations, deteriorating further with the 2015 refugee crisis.
Keywords: Croatian, Hungarian, political relations, cross-border co-operations, geopolitics
Article info: 54-67
Received: December 22, 2016 | Revised: February 13, 2017 | Accepted: March 24, 2017