Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)

6. Towns along the Hungarian and Slovak border

Cross-border relations

of cross-border relations, in several steps, especially since the borders were opened in 2007.

The main motivation for the popular will that determines the activities of the institutions is the unacceptable backward situation that the people living in the borderland area still have to suffer from. In this respect, this very long, 670-km-long border has several sections, which are basically different from each other. The border section around Bratislava, which is beginning to integrate into the Vienna-Bratislava-Győr region, is becoming a true gravitation area. Here the border ensures more favourable possibilities for those with higher demands, i.e. it divides crowdedness and comfort. The Slovak citizens escape from expensive flats in Bratislava to cheaper family houses in Rajka, where they can find conditions more suitable for their way of living. They make use of the traditional differences made by borders, just like the inhabitants of the agricultural Žitný ostrov, who have a much more modest lifestyle, do when they try to find jobs in Hungarian towns along the Danube. On the other hand, people living along the border section from the river Ipeľ to the river Tisza expect to find jobs anywhere, on either side of the border, so that they can make a living without having to move away, even if they have to commute.

After the change of system, it was in 1995 that the two countries first signed an agreement. This was the so-called primary agreement, which they signed in Paris. It did not really include intentions elaborated jointly by the Hungarian and Slovak parties or plans that the two countries wanted to implement together. It was foreign political interests that forced the two countries to conclude the primary agreement so quickly. In the campaign of the French presidential election, the future president proved with this agreement that he was the right man for the position. The fact that the primary agreement concentrated first of all on problems of minorities and that even a proposal of the European Council acknowledging the territorial autonomy rights of ethnic minorities was also impetuously included are proof of the agreement not having been prepared properly. At that time, Slovak political public opinion was not prepared for this, so the agreement induced sharp debates. Cooperation was also made difficult by the fact that the primary agreement overemphasized the principle regarding the observance of the laws enforced in the cooperating administrative organs' own countries. This happened because Slovak laws did not make actual joint activity possible.

In 1998, cooperation, which had come to a standstill, was again on the agenda. However, it was the 2001 agreement that provided the pos-155