“The issue of enlargement has been placed in good hands with the fact that it has transpired that the question of the enlargement of the European Union and neighbourhood policy will fall under the sphere of competence of the Hungarian EU commissioner during the upcoming years”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Friday in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI, adding: “Enlargement policy could gain new impetus as a result”.

The Minister is attending an event in Geneva entitled Strategic Dialogue on the Western Balkan organised by the World Economic Forum, which is being attended by heads of state and government from six Western Balkan states and six foreign ministers, including four from the EU. Mr. Szijjártó declared that Hungary is a country that doesn’t just talk about its political goals, but also takes action in the interests of achieving them. “Accordingly, the fact that a Hungarian EU Commissioner means the European Union policy, which otherwise used to be successfully, but in the recent period has instead been accumulating errors, could gain new impetus”, the Minister said. He added that the interests of the EU and Hungary fully correspond with relation to Western Balkan enlargement. “This is in our security interests in view of the fact that renewed migration pressure can be expected along the Western Balkan migration route”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

According to the Minister, it is evident that “the numbers are continuously increasing”, and almost a hundred thousand illegal immigrants have now accumulated in the Western Balkans, while the Turkish authorities have stopped 350 thousand illegal border crossers until the end of October, which is 80 percent more than during the whole of last year. “With the onset of the cold and winter, migration pressure is shifting from the maritime route to the land route”, he said. “So, the interaction of the Western Balkan countries is in our security interests. It is also in our economic interests in view of the fact that the Western Balkan countries maintain close and highly active trade relations with the countries of Europe, and the fewer restrictions stand in the way of this trade the better the situation for the European countries. And enlargement is also in our political interests, since the number of EU member states will soon be reduced, which does not paint a picture of a particularly successful European Union.  The sooner we can make progress along the path of enlargement, the sooner we can establish an image of ourselves as a successful European Union”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

“It would be a strategic error on the part of the new European Commission being formed with the leadership of Ursula con der Leyen if it failed to improve the huge failures and errors of the incumbent Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker”, he stated. “The Juncker Commission essentially stalled the enlargement process; no progress was made at all”, he said. According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, it must be recognised that the EU needs the Western Balkans at least as much as the Western Balkans needs the EU. “Today, the economic situation in Europe is such that the more we look towards the East and Central Europe, the higher the economic growth figures, meaning that Eu enlargement does not take away from the performance of the European Union, but adds to it”, the Minster said. In addition, according to Mr. Szijjártó it is also important to recognise that “there is no place for lecturing”. “With regard to certain issued the countries of the Western Balkans are not only on a par with EU standards, but are performing at a higher level, which is something the Hungarians are also feeling on their own skin”, the Minister said, citing as an example the fact that the Hungarian national community living in Serbia has receive many more rights from Serbia than Hungarian national communities are receiving in neighbouring countries that are members of the European Union.

(MTI)