“The primary task of the European Union must be to create jobs for the people of Europe, to replace European workplaces lost in the coronavirus pandemic”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on his Facebook page following Monday’s session of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council.

Mr. Szijjártó reported on the fact that one of the topics of discussion during the meeting of the EU body responsible for external affairs was the renegotiation of the economic and migration agreement concluded with 79 less developed African, Pacific Ocean and Caribbean countries, which will soon expire after its term of 20 years.

“I asked member states that were continuously talking about the need for legal migration and bringing workers into the EU prior to the global pandemic to be cautious, because there is a new situation here now, with hundreds of thousands of people having lost their jobs”, the Minister stated.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, “assistance must be taken to where there is trouble, instead of bringing the trouble here, where there is no problem”. “If we want to help African, Pacific Ocean and Caribbean countries, then we must realise economic development programs there, not bring people here from those countries”, he declared.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade also spoke about the fact that the security of the EU and Africa have been very closely linked since 2015, in view of the fact that hundreds of thousands of people set off towards Europe from Africa during the migration crisis. “We must speak openly and clearly: we continue to regard illegal migration attempts to legalise illegal migration as unacceptable, and accordingly we have made it clear to the European Commission that the new agreement to be concluded with the 79 African, Pacific Ocean and Caribbean countries must under no circumstances be an instrument for legalising illegal migration, and the new agreement cannot contain any reference to the UN Global Compact for Migration”, he stated.

Mr. Szijjártó said the Foreign Affairs Council had also discussed the coronavirus pandemic, and Director-General of the World Health Organisation Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was also involved in the debate. “The Director-General said the figures are developing well in Europe, but at global level there are processes occurring that give rise to extremely serious concerns: over one hundred thousand new cases have been reported by organisations in nine out of the past ten days, and they are warning of the possibility of a second wave. There is no guarantee of mass immunity since there is no vaccine yet, meaning our state of readiness with relation to the pandemic must be maintained until the world’s scientific community can come up with some kind of solution”, the Minister said, adding: “The WHO has asked the EU to assist parts of the world where the virus situation is becoming worse”.

The Minister pointed out that Hungary has performed, and is continuing to perform, its share of work with relation to this task, in view of the fact that together with the other three countries of the Visegrád Group it has put together a 35-million-euro program for Libya, originally for border protection, but the some of the budget may also be spent on protecting against the pandemic. “We have contributed to Libya’s efforts, because the global pandemic could give rise to new waves of migration, and this is something we must prevent”, he said. The Minister indicated that Hungary is, however, favouring neighbouring countries when it comes to providing assistance against the pandemic, because “if there is a problem in our neighbourhood, it could reach Hungary very quickly”. “Supporting the Western Balkans and the countries that are participating in the Eastern Partnership also remains important from a European perspective”, he emphasised.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade / MTI)