Romanian President Emil Constantinescu has rejected the call for Transylvanian self-government within a federal Romanian state.
Romanian President Emil Constantinescu has rejected the call for Transylvanian self-government within a federal Romanian state. The devolution argument, while framed in economic terms, has clear ethnic overtones as Transylvania is home to a large population of ethnic Hungarians. The Transylvania question is but one of the ethnic minority issues that continue to plague the new NATO members and aspiring NATO members of Eastern Europe. With NATO seen as effectively sanctioning the devolution, if not independence, of an ethnically Albanian Kosovo from Serbia, keeping these other problems in check will be an increasingly difficult task (STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update, June 9, 1999).
