“Not even the UN disputes that mass illegal migration is a phenomenon that fundamentally determines the future of Europe and the world”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó stressed at a UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) partnership forum in New York on Thursday.

“The number of migrants is estimated at 65 million, 30-35 million of whom are in the immediate vicinity of Europe. If the world does not find a correct solution to handling migration, and while the UN and other international organisations are concerned with managing illegal migration, we cannot talk about sustainable development”, he underlined.

The Minister summarised how illegal migration should be handled in four points.

“Scholarship programmes must be launched to facilitate the acquisition of competitive knowledge, and persecuted communities must be enabled to remain in place. Technological aid is required, as is maintaining the stability of countries surrounding war zones”, the politician stated in his speech.

“Hungary is showing a good example with relation to all of these points in view of the fact that the Hungarian Government is providing scholarship places to 5400 students, who can then assist the modernisation of their own countries after they return home.”, Mr. Szijjártó explained.

“There is also an extreme need to support countries in the immediate vicinity of war zones, so that they can care for refugees. For this reason, Hungary is providing funding to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt”, he stated.

“In addition, it is important for persecuted communities to also be successfully kept in place. To date, Hungary has spent over 25 million euros on supporting Christian communities in the Middle East”, Mr. Szijjártó added.

“Furthermore, developing countries must have at their disposal suitable technologies and must be able to create the fundamental conditions for life. For this reason, Hungary is assisting many countries in the fields of water management, agriculture and the food industry, within the framework of tied aid loans”, he said.

“If the world is unable to perform these four tasks, it will be ‘digging its own grave’, migration will determine everything, stability will be replaced by instability, the threat of terrorism will appear and parallel societies will develop”, the Minister stressed.

(MTI)