“The mandate of the EU’s Operation Sophia, aimed at eradicating people smuggling on the Mediterranean Sea, cannot be extended, but instead a totally new operation will be launched after it expires in March”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Monday in Brussels in the recess of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.

In a statement to Hungarian reporters, the Minister emphasised that a new operation will be launched, the aim of which will be to impose and enforce the weapons embargo adopted against Libya, which will occur via the deployment of air, satellite and maritime instruments. “Hungary’s opinion, which supports the positions of Austria and Italy, is that the deployment of ships could serve as an encouragement with relation to migration processes, meaning that an operation of this kind could easily turn into a rescue operation”, he underlined.

“The new operation cannot represent a further encouragement and attraction with relation to migration processes aimed at Europe”, Mr. Szijjártó underlined. “Hungary insists that only a political decision may be made with relation to the new operation according to which it can immediately be stopped and the ships can be pulled out of the area if it has an affect that encourages migration”, the Minister added. “Hungary also insists that member states cannot be excluded from putting forward the proposals necessary for stopping the operation, meaning that the decision must be placed into the hands of member states”, Mr. Szijjártó emphasised. He told the press that the launching of the operation still requires a long process of debate with relation to its content. “We have, however, clearly succeeded in achieving an agreement on the fact that the ships can be withdrawn if effects come about that encourage migration, in addition to which we have also succeeded in preventing the decision being taken out of the hands of member states”, he stated.

With relation to the European Union’s Africa strategy, he stressed that African countries mut be given support to enable them to retain their continuously increasing populations. “Hungary does not accept the fact that the flow of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people into Europe as a result of Africa’s population increase is ‘inevitable and unavoidable’. In our opinion, the population retention capacity of the African countries must be facilitated. This required investment projects, technological assistance and training programs”, he said.

“Hungary is undertaking its share of the tasks by providing 900 scholarship places-a-year to African students and via an 80-million euro tied aid loan program, in addition to which it has increased the level of technological assistance being provided to African countries by 400 percent to over 7 billion forints (EUR 20.9 million) in the space of a single year”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the press. In addition to reviewing the situation in Libya, the main topics of discussion at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels were the situations that have developed in the Sahel zone, Venezuela and the Western Balkans, as well as issues concerning existing relations with the African Union and India.

(MTI)