Hungary 2018 report

During the years that have passed since the ratification in 2008 of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (hereinafter Convention) and the submitting in 2012 of the first four-year country report, the Hungarian State made efforts to act as actively as possible in the interest of service the purposes of the Convention both in Hungary and abroad, within the limits of its material and human resources and organisational capacities. Even before the Convention was drafted, the Hungarian Parliament had already adopted acts that created the necessary framework and legislative background for the protection of cultural diversity, and the maintaining and preservation of the traditions of different minorities. By ratifying the Convention, Hungary declared that it gives priority to cultural diversity and considers it a pathway towards the future and sustainable development.

In this light, Hungary took several measures for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions and for the support of intercultural dialogue. Among measures taken in Hungary, we can refer to the adoption of the Act on hungaricums, the launch of the Csoóri Sàndor Programme or the multi-channeled support for minorities living Hungary and for Hungarian living abroad. As regards international cooperation, we are going to present the respective achievements of Hungarian cultural diplomacy and the cultural dimension of the Visegrad Group below.

The Hungarian State traditionally supports the involvement of civil society organisations into political decision-making so it consulted the representatives of civil society with regard to its measures taken for the purposes of the provisions of the Convention, too. In Hungary, the National Cultural Fund is the institution in charge of state-civil communication related to the subject of the Convention.

It emerged as a challenge during the application of the provisions of the Convention that Hungary had to find the balance in complying with its obligations arising from the provisions of the Convention and playing an active role in the protection of global cultural diversity between keeping its commitments proportionate with its possibilities and harmonizing its own external policy purposes with those enshrined in the Convention.