Election Committee certifies initiative to register Vietnamese as ethnic group

In line with the law, the condition for being registered as an ethnic group is the existence of at least 1,000 people who identify as belonging to that ethnic group and who hold Hungarian citizenship and voting rights in local elections.

Currently the following 13 nationalities are recognised as forming an ethnic group in Hungary: Armenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Greek, Polish, Roma, Romanian, Rusyn, Serb, Slovak, Slovene and Ukrainian.

The initiative has been certified by the committee with a unilateral decision, and the petitioner now has 120 days to collect at least 1,000 supporting signatures. The election committee will consult the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on whether the initiative meets the necessary legal conditions and if all the conditions are met, then it will be submitted to parliament to decide about the registration of the ethnic group.