Croatia - Hungary

The relationship between the two nations goes back to the medieval ages. The two countries formed a personal union based on the person of the king whom the two states shared. From then on the two states were binded together and throughout history the level of their integration differed. After Hungary's 1867 compromis with Austria, which created the Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungary also had its own compromise with Croatia creating autonomy for Croatians.

The break in this close and sometimes troubled relationship came after the first world war when Croatia's territory was taken away from Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon. After this Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia. Both countries were part of the socialist east block of Europe and while Hungary peacefully transformed into a democracy in 1990, it took Croatia a war to break away from Yugoslavia.

Why am I writing about this?

Because I live in a part of Hungary where their is a godd number of Croatians and a well organized croatian community and this week our law school welcomed guests from Osijek's Strossmayer University to participate together in a series of lectures that compare our constitutions.

What we see today is that the way that our state is organized is very similar and both countries follow the same democratic values in their contsitutions. Nevertheless I find it very important to talk about the experiences of neighbouring countries with similar background and traditions as ours since Hungary is going through a contitutional change right now. It should be the foremost priority of the Hungrarian political elite that when creating a new constitution to have a thorough and open minded look at the structures and the recent history of those nations that shared the unfortunate faith of Hungary in the twentieth century.