Hungary is a country that, in the mind of any slightly romantic Austrian reader, will immediately bring up images from “Sissi“ (more formally known as “her Imperial Majesty Empress Elizabeth of Austria”); a country that the young Empress is reported to have loved profoundly, readily embracing an understanding of its people and culture. A slightly less romantic person, would, however, be dissatisfied with such factoids; Out of the world’s 200 countries, out of the 27 EU member states, as a modern country, Hungary stands out: in discussing it, it becomes us to understand why that might be.

To any European, the first and foremost answer is language; while almost all official European languages belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian, or “Magyar”, is part of the Finno-Ugric linguistic family, something it has in common with Finnish and Estonian; as Hungary is the largest of those three in terms of population, Hungarian is by far the most spoken of the languages. Altogether, the relative disconnection between Hungarian and other European languages places an onerous burden upon native speakers of the former; as mentioned in an earlier article, language shapes thought, and in turn, thought shapes communication patterns and processes, as well as expectations and understanding. The uniqueness of the Hungarian language means that Hungarians must be the ones to learn how to communicate at the European level, and not vice versa. It is, in short, an iron-clad reason for which native speakers of Hungarian should be interested in the ECo-C.

As luck would have it, interested parties need not wait long to satisfy the craving for communication training. Recent reports indicate that the ECo-C will be available in Hungary in a few months’ time. In a recent implementation meeting held at IPKeurope between the Austrian and Hungarian partners, it became clear that the prerequisites would soon be fulfilled, the procedure concluded and the Hungarian ECo-C certification available to the public as of Fall 2010.

From an outsider perspective, this expansion is in line with the historical connection between the two countries; a community of history makes it easier for stakeholders to come together, learn, share advances, and benefit from each other. In the framework of the European Union, however, this process carries a totally different name and much more profound implications: in expanding the ECo-C to Hungary from Austria, these two countries are doing groundwork on a grander scale; they are in essence adding one more element to the community of destiny that the EU seeks to build.

Pictured: Leopold Kaiblinger, President IPKeurope, Erich Lifka, IPcenter Vienna,Prof. Sándor Bordás, Academic Advisor, ECo-C Hungary, Judit Jurcsisin, LR-Training Master, ECo-C Hungary, Beáta Földváry, Country Representative, ECo-C Hungary, Zóltan Petrovszki, Master Trainer, ECo-C Hungary, Karina Kaiblinger, International coordination, ECo-C Europe.