Reconstruction of Ukraine – our diplomacy lives on war and not on the future of Ukraine and Slovakia – Jozef Legény
In Lugano (Switzerland) with the participation of four countries on the 4th-5th held a conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine in July. It is not free, because in 2021 in Vilnius, 2019 in Toronto, 2018 in Copenhagen and 2017 in London, conferences were held on the topic of reforms in Ukraine. So Ukraine as a functional country clearly exists as a problem.
But to the point. If we consider the history of such conferences, this conference will certainly be followed by several so-called domestic conferences, where individual countries will commit to providing aid. Slovakia will probably also be there, as part of the EU. Of course, those countries that help will have an eminent interest in getting a substantial part of the aid back in the form of bans on companies and institutions of the donor countries.
As can be seen from the picture from one of the presentations at the conference published on the conference website, there are countries that clearly already know where they want to help, and if they know where, there is no doubt that they also know what and how. At the very bottom left, so far only blue, is a piece of land, now Ukraine, with which we even shared a common Czechoslovak state from 1918 to 1938, and before that, of course, Hungarian fates – Subcarpathian Rus. I was there a few times on a job, as I worked for a short time in international relations at the railways. If I exclude some buildings from the Soviet era, in the older parts of Uzhhorod and even in the countryside, you can feel that you are in familiar regions, as if here. Castles and mansions are also like ours, and even the names of noble families are known here. In fact, at that time there were still people who experienced the Czechoslovak era as schoolchildren. Today, of course, the situation is different, but thanks to the Greek-Catholic Church and the revival of the Ruthenian nationality, the elements of reciprocity and cooperation have grown here again. Therefore, the fact that the Slovak flag did not fly over this region at the conference is either a sign of ignorance or apathy of Slovak diplomacy.
I will try to tell the MFA of the Slovak Republic why it is necessary to go there:
-
we have a common border with the region, there are even family ties between Slovak citizens in the east and citizens of Transcarpathia, there are many people in the east who do not need any interpreters when working in Subcarpathian Russia
-
the Hungarian government actively helps Hungarian students from Transcarpathia to get an education, a large part of them remains in Hungary, I think that students of Ruthenian and Slovak nationality could on the one hand plan the necessary places with us, but those who would return could help the establishment Slovak companies.
-
through Slovak territory and Subcarpathian Rus, a standard-gauge railway connection from Poland to Romania ran for the republic. By restoring this connection, we could on the one hand make the Eastern Slovak region available for rail transport on the north-south route, the restoration of this route would undoubtedly be a project that the EU would finance as part of the pre-accession process, and if it were done really well, there is a high transfer potential part of the truck transport that spoils the exit to the railway.
-
after an agreement with Hungary focused on the Hungarian minority, with which we have a similar interest in protecting the Slovak minority and the Ruthenian minority, which was not only in our country (1945-1989) but was also exposed to Ukrainization there until today, we could help Ukraine to create such a model of coexistence support with the minority, as it is in our country, including minority education.
-
our model of assistance and engagement would most likely be a model where the result was not a critical brain drain and qualified hands from the territory. Due to the proximity, family and cultural ties would be preserved and people would not leave the territory permanently. Here we would capitalize on our negative experience with dying villages and hungry valleys and let Ukrainian friends learn from our mistakes not only in this area, but also in our process of joining the EU.
It’s really high time to find out about it. This war will hopefully end soon. According to the latest reports, the signing of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the export of grain is about to take place. I firmly believe that this is a beginning, a beacon of hope at the end of the tunnel, and an impetus for reasonable, emotionless dialogue as both sides seek to understand. And I hope that soon I will be able to visit the places in Kiev that I admired and are connected with beautiful memories, swim in the Dnieper in the Hydropark and cook a fish ear from fish caught with my own hands.