“Hungary will not become an immigrant country, is has never admitted and will never admit illegal immigrants”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared in Bratislava at a press conference following his meeting with Slovakian State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and Acting Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok on Tuesday.

Hungary’s chief diplomat was reacting to a statement by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel over the weekend according to which “they have given the solidarity-rejecting Visegrád countries an ultimatum” in view of which if a consensus is not achieved in the council of EU member state governments by the end of June, then the planned reforms will be adopted without them with a qualified majority vote.

Mr. Szijjártó said Charles Michel’s statement was shocking and unacceptable, which he rejected firmly as unconcealed blackmail.

“Hungary has never admitted and will never admit illegal immigrants, irrespective of whether there is any pressure in this direction along the borders or from Brussels”, he declared. “The Belgian Prime Minister’s statement is also outrageous because this is the first time that people in Brussels are openly planning to push the mandatory resettlement quota through by force while totally ignoring the will of certain EU member states”, he explained.

“We regard this whole thing as unacceptable and we reject it”, Mr. Szijjártó stressed, adding that: “The countries of the Visegrád Group do not support the introduction of any kind of mandatory quota”. “Perhaps it doesn’t bother the Belgian Prime Minister that there are no-go zones in many Western European cities, or that people with immigrant backgrounds have committed 27 major terrorist attacks in Europe recently, but this bothers the V4 because they do not want to live on a continent were the threat of terrorism becomes an everyday regularity”, he noted.

The Minister told the press that he and Mr. Korčok has also discussed Central European energy security, with relation to which he had informed his negotiating partner that in view of the fact that two Hungarian companies have purchased the rights to the full future capacity of the Romanian-Hungarian natural gas pipeline, thus enabling a long-term opportunity to import the natural gas extracted by the Americans on the Black Sea to Hungary, the Government has decided to construct the missing stretch of gas pipeline between Hungary’s central gas distribution centre and the Hungarian-Slovakian gas interconnector. “The roughly one hundred kilometre stretch of pipeline will mean the establishment of the north-south gas corridor, which opens up many opportunities for diversifying the various forms of gas acquisition, as well as enabling gas from the Black Sea to reach Slovakia.

Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about Hungarian-Slovakian bilateral relations, telling reporters that he and his Slovakian negotiating partner had agreed that relations between the two countries had never been so balanced, as also indicated by the fact that the Visegrád alliance and the Hungarian-Slovakian alliance have “passed with a grade A” even in the midst of major European pressure.

Ivan Korčok also stressed the intense nature and excellent quality of cooperation and bilateral relations between the two countries with regard to both politics and the economy.

With relation to the Belgian Prime Minister’s statement, he said: We must not allow them to “vote over our heads” again.

Before meeting with Mr. Korčok, the Hungarian Foreign Minister officially inaugurated the new integrated foreign office building in Bratislava, which in addition to the Hungarian Embassy will house the Hungarian Institute, the Hungarian Consulate and the country’s business representation. Later in the day, Mr. Szijjártó will be meeting with politicians from the Slovakian Government and representatives of the Party of the Hungarian Community (PHC).

(MTI)