The enlargement of the European Union is indispensable for Europe to be strong, State Secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told a meeting of heads of EU diplomacy on Monday.
Addressing a meeting in Chisinau, held in support of Moldova‘s European integration and attended by the newly elected High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR) Federica Mogherini, the State Secretary stressed that delays of or obstacles to expansion attributable to the EU go against the very interests of the integration. “The European Union has lost much of its competitiveness in the wake of global political and economic changes to which seclusion is a bad response. Given the circumstances, EU expansion must be accelerated in order to recover the competitiveness we have lost”.
Péter Szijjártó underscored the need to strengthen the EU’s Eastern Partnership programme. The success of this programme is an elemental interest of Hungary’s national economy as its “Opening to the East” foreign trade strategy targets the countries involved, whose European integration would lend great momentum to economic and trade cooperation.
State Secretary Szijjártó, who also chairs the Hungarian-Moldovan Joint Economic Committee, met Deputy Minister of Economy Octavian Calmic and the two co-chairmen agreed to convene a meeting of the joint committee for 25 and 26 Up 13.6 percent, Hungarian exports to Eastern Partnership members Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine topped USD 3 billion last year, and further significant growth is expected as the integration of these countries progresses and as treaties lifting trade barriers take effect.
The pharmaceutical sector has played a crucial role in Hungarian-Moldovan economic and trade cooperation, which exceeded USD 120 million last year. In the first five months of this year, Hungarian export has grown by 18.9% per cent. In order to encourage further growth, the government supports the involvement of Hungarian SMEs in upcoming investment projects in energy and environmental protection. With the entry into force of a new scholarship agreement between the two countries, Moldova has started to fill up the 30 places it was granted at Hungarian universities.
Moldova signed an association and free trade agreement with the EU on 27 June, which is pending ratification by the Member States of the European Union.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)
