Slovakia has won a legal battle with Hungary in the European courts over an incident dating back to 2009, when then-Hungarian president Laszlo Solyom was refused entry rights to an ethnically Hungarian comunity in southern Slovakia. The entry refusal was made on the basis that the visit presented a security risk. The visit had been timed on a Hungarian national holiday, held in honor of the country’s first king, Saint Stephen. A statue of the saint was being unveiled in the town of Komarno on that day, which also fell on the anniversary of the invasion in 1968 by Warsaw Pact forces of Czechoslovakia. Hungarian troops were among those to cross its neighbors borders. The Slovak foreign ministry has argued that while the movement of private persons cannot be restricted in the European Union, visits by heads of state come under international law.
