Reflecting such concerns over the implications of dual citizenship for sovereignty and territorial integrity, a number of political commentators, experts, as well as the opposition in Ukraine expressed their negative attitude to the Hungarian law. For example, on 25 June the Zakarpattia branch of the Committee of Defense of Ukraine formed in May by leaders of some ten opposition parties approved a document where the Hungarian law is classified as “carrying a threat to the national security of Ukraine,” while the head of the rightist Ukrainian People’s Party Stepan Khmara warned that dual citizenship for Ukrainian Hungarians will be but “the first step, after which the process will extend to other regions of Ukraine.”
The lack of official reaction can be explained by several factors. First, in a highly regionally polarized Ukraine, the Zakarpattia oblast is one of the very few regions not firmly associated with a particular political camp. Former President Yushchenko’s “Our Ukraine” party won the 2006 and 2007 parliamentary elections in Zakarpattia, Yushchenko’s opponent Viktor Yanukovych carried the region in the first round of the 2010 presidential elections, and then lost it to Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko’s former ally, in the second round. Because no political force “owns” the region, it may be strategically preferable for national-level politicians to refrain from taking a strong stand on issues sensitive to the voters in the region. Second, the politics of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine is not as politically sensitive as the Hungarian issue in Slovakia or Romania. There is virtually no irredentist rhetoric emanating from the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia, nor do the Hungarians and their leaders challenge Ukrainian state sovereignty over the region. Ukrainian commentators agree that Ukrainian Hungarians regard the prospects of dual citizenship in purely practical rather than political terms. Had it been not Hungary but Russia to issue a similar law, with Crimea rather than Zakarpattia primarily affected by the law, a stronger official reaction from Ukraine would have been assured.
As for ethnic Hungarians themselves, the amendment to the Hungarian law is more consequential for Hungarians in Ukraine than for Hungarians in EU member states, such as Slovakia or Romania. Even though some 75 percent of Hungarians in Zakarpattia are estimated to be holders of the “foreign Hungarian” card established by the 2001 Hungarian Status Law that gives holders benefits in educational, cultural, and socio-economic spheres, Hungarian citizenship would extend to Ukrainian Hungarians an additional major benefit – the right to free travel to and within the EU. Ukraine is not an EU member state and its citizens need visas to enter the EU.
At the same time, those Ukrainian citizens who obtain Hungarian passport will also be incurring some risks, in particular the risk of losing their Ukrainian citizenship and, as a result, some rights, most notably as the right to inherit agricultural land, which according to the Land Code of Ukraine can only be inherited by citizens of Ukraine. Ukrainian legislation does not permit dual citizenship. If a Ukrainian citizen also holds a foreign passport, in relations with Ukraine s/he is recognized only as citizen of Ukraine (Article 2, para 1 of the 2001 Ukrainian Citizenship Law). Furthermore, the 2001 Citizenship Law (Article 19, para 1) provides that if a Ukrainian citizen voluntarily acquires the citizenship of a foreign state, s/he loses his/her Ukrainian citizenship. The loss of Ukrainian citizenship is not automatic, however, but requires a formal procedure for each individual case. This procedure entails a governmental body (domestically the Interior Ministry and abroad the consular services ) to submit a formal petition with supporting documents, including a document proving that the citizen in question has acquired a foreign citizenship. The final decision to deprive a person of Ukrainian citizenship is taken by the Citizenship Commission of the Presidential Administration and signed by the President. As there are no bilateral agreements between Ukraine and other states on sharing such information there are few ways for the Ukrainian authorities to obtain legal proof that a Ukrainian citizen has acquired foreign citizenship short of catching a citizen with two passports in hand . Even though the practical risk of losing Ukrainian citizenship as a consequence of acquisition of the Hungarian citizenship is small, the theoretical and legal possibility is there. As one recent newspaper article put it, by deciding to acquire a Hungarian passport, Ukrainian Hungarians may want to keep in mind the old proverb “Not everything that glistens is gold.”
Links and references
“Угорщина узаконила подвійне громадянство. Чому мовчить Україна?”
[Hungary Legalized Dual Citizenship: Why is Ukraine Keeping Silent?], at unian.net, 22 June 2010 (Ukrainian)
“Закарпатський обласний Комітет захисту України виступив проти подвійного громадянства і утисків влади” [Zakarpattia Regional Committee of Defense of Ukraine Spoke Against Dual Citizenship and Repressions by the Authorities], at zakarpattya.net.ua, 26 June 2010 (Ukrainian)
“На Закарпатті люди масово отримують іноземні паспорти” [In Zakarpattia People Are Obtaining Foreign Passports En Masse], at tyachiv.info, 1 March 2009 (Ukrainian)
“Проти нового закону Угорщини про подвійне громадянство протестує тільки Словаччина” [Only Slovakia Protests Against the New Hungarian Law on Dual Citizenship], at radiosvoboda.org, 26 May 2010 (Ukrainian)
“ “Чужий” паспорт” [‘Foreign’ Passport], at experts.in.ua, undated (Ukrainian)
“Барони і барани. Вибори в Закарпатті.” [Barons and Rams. Elections in Zakarpattia], at lb.ua, 11 February 2010 (Ukrainian)
“Угорська акція виявилася «золотою»” [Hungarian share turned out to be “golden”], in mukachevo.net, 22 January 2010, in Ukrainian.
[Народники переживають, щоб не відновили подвійне громадянство” [People’s party is worried about dual citizenship again becoming a possibility], mukachevo.net, 20 May 2010 (Ukrainian)
V. Andrienko, S. Brytchenko, V. Subotenko, S. Chekhovych, Naukovo-praktychnyi komentar Zakonu Ukrainy “Pro hromadianstvo Ukrainy” [Scientific-practical commentary on the law of Ukraine “On Citizenship of Ukraine”] (Kyiv: Lesia, 2002), in Ukrainian. Especially pp. 28-30, 120-121, 129, 198, 214-215.