“Migration will continue to pose the most serious challenge to Europe in future and accordingly Europe must protect itself from the effects of Brussels’ ludicrous migration policies”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Thursday in summary of the statements made at the meeting of Central European Initiative (CEI) Foreign Ministers in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Hercegovina.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, the CEI Foreign Ministers warned: “The migration crisis is far from over, the pressure is still present and we must search for solutions to it”. In his opinion, the solutions put forward so far by the Brussels institutions have done more to deepen the crisis than point to a solution “in view of the fact that the European Commission’s proposals are based on a flawed fundamental principle”, he explained. According to Mr. Szijjártó, this misguided fundamental principle is the promotion of “legal” migration, which increases the burden on the European Union. What we should instead be seeking is for as few people as possible to set out for Europe and for these burdens to decrease. “In our opinion the burden should not be increased and distributed, as is the view of the European institutions, but should instead be decreased”, he declared.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister pointed out that the Western Balkans, Central Europe and Italy had had to endure the passage of more than a million illegal migrants over the past year, and if the proposals of the European Commission are maintained then this pressure could increase even further. And this is something that will first be experienced in the countries of the Western Balkans and in Hungary, and the migrants will once again appear at the Hungarian border and aggressive migrants will once again attack Hungarian police officers.

“The Government’s standpoint is that it is time to put an end to policies based on invitations, because they have already caused too much damage to Europe and to the European Union”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted, adding that the countries of Central Europe must work together to protect themselves “from the consequences of invitation-based, totally flawed Brussels migration policies”.

The Foreign Minister summarised the Hungarian proposal in three points.
“First, we must be capable of protecting our borders, because otherwise we will be vulnerable and defenceless”, he stressed. Hungary is ready to provide further assistance to the countries of the Western Balkan region, because it has already sent 218 police officers to assist the border security of various countries and has provided some half a billion forints (EUR 27M) in technical assistance. Furthermore, according to the proposal so-called hot spots should be established outside the territory of the European Union, meaning the decision on who is eligible for asylum must be made before entry into the EU “in view of the fact that the re-entry policy is not working and it is clear that once someone has entered Europe they are here to stay and cannot be sent back”. According to the third element of the proposal the European Union should only provide development funding to countries that act to the eliminate the causes of migration, because the EU is currently providing billion of euros in funding to countries that are the source of migration.

On the sidelines of the meeting of CEI Foreign Ministers, Mr. Szijjártó with his Macedonian, Croatian and Italian counterparts. He assured Macedonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Poposki that Hungary remains prepared to provide border protection assistance. Mr. Szijjártó’s meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni also centred on migration and a possible composite solution, while his meeting with his Croatian counterpart, Miro Kovač, involved current Croatian domestic policy with regard to which Mr. Szijjártó declared: “It is in Hungary’s interests for Croatia to have as stable a government as possible because there are too many open questions in the relations between the two countries and time is of the essence”.

The Central European Initiative was established on 11 November 1989 and currently has eighteen members. The goal of the organisation is to strengthen cooperation between the Central European and Western Balkan regions, to promote business relations and to facilitate democratic transformation and European integration.

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia, Hungary, Macedonia, Belarus, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia, the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Albania, Moldova and Poland, the Ministers of State for Foreign Affairs of Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia, diplomats from Slovenia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn all attended the plenary session of the CEI summit.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)