“The European Union should be much quicker and more courageous with regard to its Western Balkan enlargement process; it should open all of the chapters of the Serbian and Montenegrin accession negotiations before the end of this year”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI following talks with EU Commissioners in Brussels on Thursday morning.
He stressed that the Government is extremely dissatisfied with the fact that according to the European Commission the accession of Serbia and Montenegro cannot occur prior to 2025. “There is no need to wait a further seven years”, he said, pointing out that the EU integration of the Western Balkan states is in the economic and security interests of all of Europe.
Integration would assure the region’s stability, without which “a new wave of migration could very easily come knocking the EU’s southern border, which in this case means Hungary’s southern border”.
In reply to a question from the press, Mr. Szijjártó said Hungary was disappointed with relation to French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement last week according to which Paris will only support further enlargement following the internal reform of the EU.
“Unfortunately this confirms the fact the governments in Western Europe don’t really understand the region. The Western Balkans could cause major instability in Europe, but it could also lead to major progress with relation to Europe’s security”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister stressed.
Mr. Szijjártó also spoke briefly about Central European energy security, which in his opinion “is still an unsolved problem despite all of the grandiose European statements and slogans”.
He pointed out that Croatia has still not begun construction of its liquid natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal and the Hungarian-Croatian gas interconnector still doesn’t enable the two-way flow of natural gas. As he explained, the “most realistic” future progress is possible in Romania: if the Romanians adhere to their commitments and enable the two-way flow of gas between the two countries’ gas networks in the very near future and begin producing gas on the Black Sea, then from 2020 Hungary will have a realistic chance of diversifying its sources of natural gas.
With relation to another topic, Mr. Szijjártó underlined in closing that further significant progress in Hungary with relation to promoting investment can be achieved via the development of education and vocational training.
In Brussels, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade met with Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Johannes Hahn, and Energy Commissioner Arias Cañete.
(MTI)
