Romanian Foreign Ministry: Orbán's scarf with Greater Hungary map unacceptable

The Romanian Foreign Ministry has expressed its strong disapproval to Hungary's ambassador to Bucharest over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's scarf which he wore on Sunday night at the Hungary-Greece football match: the scarf bears a map of Greater Hungary, which includes territories which became part of Romania as part of the Treaty at Trianon after the First World War.

In a video posted on his official social media page, Orbán congratulated Balázs Dzsudzsák, who is retiring from the Hungarian national football team, and the motif of Great Hungary is clearly visible.

According to the Romanian Foreign Ministry, the Hungarian Prime Minister's gesture "clearly contradicts the openness towards the resumption of bilateral dialogue, which the Romanian Foreign Minister expressed during his recent visit to Budapest, both during his consultations with the Prime Minister and his Hungarian counterpart".

At the same time, Romanian diplomacy stressed that it considers all forms of revisionist manifestations unacceptable as they are contrary to reality and to the mutual commitments made by Romania and Hungary to build bilateral relations, notably the Good Neighbourly Agreement signed in Timisoara on 16 September 1996 and the Strategic Partnership adopted two decades ago.

Update, 2:00 pm:

Ukraine and Croatia react

Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook that the Hungarian ambassador in Kyiv would be summoned after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appeared at a football match wearing a scarf depicting Greater Hungary, 24.hu reported.

Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenković was not enthusiastic either, saying, "As far as scarves are concerned, I have not seen it and I really don't have time to talk about other people's scarves. As far as territorial claims against Croatia by anyone, including Hungary, are concerned, they are absolutely unacceptable, for us it is not an option."

Croatian President Zoran Milanović said the matter is not even worth reacting to, Népszava reports:

"I can only laugh at this. His [Viktor Orbán's] ambitions for Croatia are limited to spending August sailing the Adriatic and meeting me for dinner. [...] I wouldn't pay much attention to that. As far as our neighbours are concerned, Hungary is still the best," he said.

Orbán explains

In the end, the Hungarian Prime Minister posted a reaction as well:

“Football is not politics. Let us not read into this something that's not there. The Hungarian team represents every Hungarian, regardless of where they may live.”