According to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, the European Union is not only on the wrong track with relation to mandatory resettlement quotas, but is also placing African cooperation into a totally incorrect perspective.

In an interview on Hungarian M1 television’s Tuesday morning current affairs program, the Minister was asked, amongst others, about his meeting on Monday with Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed.

Mr. Szijjártó stressed that his Eritrean counterpart “agrees with Hungarian migration policy”, because if people leave his country there will be nobody to work for the future and build Eritrea’s modern economy.

He repeated that in his opinion Europe’s security begins in Africa, meaning it is greatly dependent on the stability of North Africa. As an example, he cited the fact that since Libya has become destabilised migration from more southern areas of Africa is reaching the continent’s northern shores unhindered via the country, from where migrants board ships bound for Europe.

He also spoke about the fact that assistance should not be provided to ensure that as many people as possible reach Europe, as represented by Brussels policy, but to help them remain there, and that requires peace, stability and economic progress.

Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about the fact that this year’s Visegrád Group (V4) summit will be held in Jerusalem, pointing out that when Hungary was president of the V4 in 2017, the first ever V4-Israel prime ministerial summit was held, and an Israeli Prime Minister visited Budapest for the first time since the 1989 regime change. “Central European countries, primarily including Hungary, but also Poland and the Czech Republic, regularly demand fair treatment for Israel in the UN, the EU and other international organisations, and this is one of the reasons why cooperation between the Central European region and Israel is particularly important”, he stated.

(MTI)