Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó had talks on Tuesday in New York regarding the north-south infrastructure development of the Central-European region between the Adriatic Sea and the Baltic Sea and the global management of the crisis.

The Minister told the Hungarian News Agency MTI that the attendees of the first meeting of the Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea cooperation forged with the participation of 12 countries at the initiative of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic decided to maintain this form of cooperation and to hold their next meeting in Zagreb in 2016.

“We have resolved to create the region’s north-south-bound infrastructure, which is as yet missing, in the fields of energy, transport and digital communication, through joint action for the acquisition of EU funds and talks”, the Minister said.

During the course of the day Mr Szijjártó had talks with Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary-General, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States within the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, and Peter Boehm, Associate Deputy Minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs of Canada, primarily with respect to issues concerning migration.

“I attempted to convince my counterparts that this is a global issue, and as such, it calls for a global response. There was agreement on this with all three of my negotiating partners”, the Minister said.

“I think at this point in time it is the most important for the international community to accept: Europe cannot bear the burdens alone because Europe was not solely responsible for the international political decisions, in the wake of which a significant region has become destabilised, but, in fact, everyone who was involved in the adoption of those decisions is equally responsible”, he added.

Based on the support expressed by his negotiating partners, Mr Szijjártó said he was hopeful that the Hungarian proposal – based on which a global approach must be adopted with a view to resolving the crisis – will meet with wider support at the UN’s migration conference on Wednesday.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)