“With relation to Ukraine, the European Union has provided mistaken responses to a situation that is full of challenges, and the sanctions introduced against Russia have failed from both a political and economic perspective because they have not achieved the required results”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared in the recess of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

“The sanctions policy has proven to be a mistaken and unsuccessful response, which has caused major damage to Europe while failing to realise the set goals, such as the enforcement of the Minsk Agreements”, Mr. Szijjártó said, “Conflicts of a non-economic nature must be handled via non-economic means. Maintaining the sanctions is causing losses for Europe; the Russian economy has already acclimatised itself to them”, he added.

“It is unfair that the European Union has not afforded Ukraine visa-free travel despite the fact that Kiev has fulfilled all of the set conditions, in addition to which progress should also be made with regard to the signing of a free trade agreement”, the Minister declared.

“What would truly help would be if Europe were to afford Ukraine the opportunity for the free movement of services, goods and people”, Mr. Szijjártó stressed.

The Hungarian Foreign Minister stressed that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is not in question, but we mustn’t forget about the various minorities living in the country, including the 150 thousand strong Hungarian minority.
Mr. Szijjártó declared that Hungary is not prepared to accept any amendment of the acts on languages or education that places the Hungarian community in a worse position that it is currently in, or which would prejudice the rights of Hungarians living within the diaspora.

Concerning the migration-related topics of the meeting of foreign ministers, Mr. Szijjártó said that without the stability of Egypt there can be no European security, because if it is compromised then tens of millions of people could set out for Europe.
“It is clear that the current leadership is better than the previous one with regard to both human rights and economic and social perspectives, and so instead of criticism we should be placing emphasis of providing support”, he said.

Mr. Szijjártó told reporters that at the request of Egypt the Member States of the European Union must vote to improve the North African country’s border defence capabilities, in addition to which the EU will also be deciding on awarding 500 thousand euros in aid, aimed at enabling Egyptian citizens to remain home.

With relation to Libya, the Foreign Minister stressed that we must strive to ensure that the targets of reinforcing the protection of Europe’s external borders and stopping the wave of immigration set down at Friday’s EU summit in Malta, and which Hungary has been proposing for two years now, are put into practice by the European Union as soon as possible.

(MTI/kormany.hu)