“Hungary and Poland are representing a totally identical position with relation to migration: they regard migration as a security issue and reject the mandatory resettlement quota”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Thursday in Budapest following talks with Minister for Humanitarian Aid Programmes Beata Kempa from the Polish Prime Minister’s Office.

Mr. Szijjártó highlighted the fact that the two countries want to make it clear that instead of bringing trouble here, assistance must be taken to where the trouble is. For this reason, he and the Polish Minister have agreed that Hungary and Poland will be jointly renovating a previously damaged orphanage owned by the Orthodox community in the Syrian city of Homs, the Foreign Minister announced.

Mr. Szijjártó told the press that the 340 million forint (EUR 1 million) cost of the project will be evenly split between Hungary and Poland, and both Hungarian and Polish humanitarian organisations will be involved in its realisation. From the Hungarian side, the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta and the Hungarian Ecumenical Assistance Service will be taking part in the work, he added. He also said that the renovation project, which will begin this year and be completed by the middle of next year, also includes the expansion of the orphanage, with the number of places for children increasing to 270 from the current 32.

The Minister also spoke about the fact that Hungary is providing assistance to Middle Eastern Christians, and to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, in addition to which it is calling for the European Union to provide financial assistance to countries that are caring from hundreds of thousands of refugees.

In reply to a question from Hungarian M1 television, Mr. Szijjártó also reacted to the article by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister published on Thursday in which Pavlo Klimkin wrote: Hungary is beginning to understand that Ukraine does not intend to discriminate against the Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia with the new Education Act.

In response, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said Hungary would be glad to return to its policy of supporting Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration, but the “rock hard” requirement for it to do so is that Ukraine returns the rights that have been stripped from Transcarpathian Hungarians by the Education Act.

“We also explained this as last Friday’s working group meeting of the countries’ foreign and education ministers”, Mr. Szijjártó added, explaining that Ukraine had promised to ensure that the Act’s transitionary period is extended and private schools are exempted from the Act’s scope of authority.

“Until Ukraine implements these changes, however, no session of the NATO-Ukraine committee or NATO-Ukraine summits can take place”, the Minister declared.

(MTI)