Just one day before the launch of the project set of education laws, Marko Bela, a leader of the UDMR (Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania), asked the Romanian education minister Cristian Adomnitei for radical changes in the education for the Magyar community. The minister dismissed the claims, but the launch of the project was anyway postponed till after the election on MEPs, on grounds that the time was not right for thorough debate. Because of a risk such as losing the coming elections, Marko Bela has taken more radical action. Last Tuesday he fetched to the Ministry of Education an entire list of claims concerning only education for the Magyar community, parliamentary sources say. The UDMR leader demanded that the Magyar-origin schoolchildren in Romania should be taught Romanian as foreign language. He also asked that the geography and history of Romania should be taught in Magyar as well and the tests should be held in the same language. Another claim of his was that the principals of schools in the Magyar community should be representatives of this origin. As during the debate on the law draft to settle the status of national minorities the UDMR members expressed the same claims, this legislative initiative has been at a standstill in the Parliament for two years now. And this is why Marko Bela decided to give it one more try by a different means. Discriminating claims Minister Adomnitei dismissed all the claims, arguing that to meet such claims would be to discriminate the other minorities and lead to significant social convulsions. (...) A press release sent yesterday announced the debate on the new education laws will open after the election of MEPs. There are to follow discussions with unions, student federations and academic communities. The project will then be available for public debate for one month so that anyone can express opinion on the new education legislation. (R.I.P.)