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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's prime minister has sent greetings to her country's ethnic Hungarians as they commemorated the 1848 revolution against Habsburg rule and demand more autonomy.
Premier Viorica Dancila said Thursday that: "Romania promotes the European notion 'unity in diversity' and supports the free expression of ethnic identities."
Dancila praised Romania's 1.2 million Hungarians for contributing "to our joint cultural inheritance," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was calling Romania not to fine local Hungarians for displaying the Hungarian flag.
Szijjarto said authorities in three Transylvanian cities had been fined for flying the Hungarian flag without flying a Romanian flag next to it. It's illegal in Romania to put up any foreign flag without also flying Romania's flag.
The Hungarian minister called the fines "not worthy of a European Union member."
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This version has been corrected to show Prime Minister Viorica Dancila is a woman who uses "her" as personal pronoun.
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