National policy
After World War 1, about a third of the Hungarians living in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy came under foreign rule. This inevitably influenced the subsequent policy of the Hungarian governments: the nationality question of the formerly multi-ethnic Kingdom of Hungary was replaced by the issue of the roughly 3 million Hungarians who were annexed to neighbouring countries (in 1920: Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Austria). National policy became part of Hungary’s changing strategy to deal with the consequences of the Trianon peace treaty. In the period between the two world wars, the governments in Budapest sought to revise the peace treaty, and support for Hungarian minorities abroad was essentially subordinated to this goal. However, the temporary successes of the revision led to another defeat in the war. The decades after WW2 were characterised by Soviet dominance and internationalism, and the Hungarian state had very few means to support Hungarian minorities. A further significant change could only take place after the fall of state socialism, as was signalled by the Antall government that took office in 1990, and openly took responsibility for the fate of Hungarians abroad. Since then, national policy can be defined as the policy of the Hungarian state aimed at preserving the national identity of Hungarians living abroad, the reproduction of Hungarian communities and the strengthening of Hungarian–Hungarian relations. This was served by the institutional system established in the 1990s-2000s (e.g. the Office of Hungarians Beyond the Border, the Permanent Hungarian Conference, Duna Television, Márton Áron College, etc.), the targeted support policy (educational and cultural support, scholarships), the Status Lawadopted in 2001, support for autonomist movements, etc. Although Hungarian national policy was reinterpreted and its institutions changed after Hungary’s accession to the EU, since 2010 it has become more centralised and emphasised again. Apart from additional economic support and symbolic issues, the most important measure has been the introduction of simplified Hungarian naturalization.