EU's pacifying influence in Slovak-Hungarian crisis

The dispute in which Slovakia refused Hungarian President László Sólyom entry to the country last week claiming an alleged "security risk" still continues but is showing signs of abating under the EU's pacifying influence, the left-liberal daily Der Tagesspiegel writes: "The fact that these problems with minorities exist not only in these two countries but in most of the countries of southern Europe is also a delayed after-effect of the bungled peace treaties signed at the end of the First World War. … The unresolved minority problems in the states of south eastern Europe were suppressed with violence during the communist era. With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc they came to the surface. The affected nations are having a hard time learning how to use diplomatic instruments towards a balancing of interests. If it weren't for the pacifying influence of the European Union the conflicts between Slovakia and Hungary would probably have escalated to the brink of war or beyond it."

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