When Budapest initiated the procedure for issuing Hungarian passports in Zakarpattia, it still had no idea what kind of corrupt system it would face.
This was told by the former head of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration Hennadiy Moskal.
According to him, now Hungary for every passport issued in the region takes up to two dozen, since documents were received not only by ethnic Hungarians, who are relatively few here, but also by Ukrainians.
“If a person wants to get a passport [of a Hungarian citizen], then he is sent to the university. There he receives a certificate that he can write, read and speak Hungarian fluently. The second point is that the mother or grandmother should be Hungarian”, – the politician explains.
At the same time, he noted that problems arose at a time when Ukrainians realized that all these certificates could be bought.
“At first, Hungary did not know the level of our corruption. Litigation is ongoing. One by one. They made it possible to take an examination on knowledge of Hungarian to the heads of village councils, village and city administrations, take the oath, and so on. But it turned out that most of the issued passports were issued to those who are not ethnic Hungarians at all, do not know the language and live somewhere in Kiev”, – Moskal continues.
It got to the point, he notes, that the police received an order according to which a person is seized a Hungarian passport if he does not speak and understand the Hungarian language.