“The security of the Middle East and Africa are extremely closely linked to Europe’s security; there continues to be a high level of instability in these regions, and this threatens to give rise to new waves of immigration in future”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó highlighted on Monday at a press conference held in the recess of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

At his press conference, the Minister reported on the fact that the fight against the Islamic State jihadist organisation was going well, but that terrorism was reorganising itself in other forms and attempting to conquer other areas.

“The situation confirms the correctness of our existing policies; all encouragement of migration must be avoided because it represents a danger to Europe, and to both countries of origin and transit countries”, Mr. Szijjártó said. “Neither the Middle East nor Africa want huge numbers, hundreds of thousands of people to travel through countries, because that can give rise to even greater instability”, he said.

“Help must be taken to where there is trouble, and accordingly Hungary is providing all possible assistance to economic development programmes. In addition, the EU must provide real assistance within the field of border security, as well as supporting Christian communities and increasing its peacekeeping activities in the region”, he highlighted.

With relation to the latter, the Minister pointed out that in comparison to its size Hungary is contributing significant forces to peacekeeping missions, and the Government is considering how it could further increase its role in the peacekeeping mission in Mali in future. Mr. Szijjártó also pointed out that 976 African students are currently studying in Hungary within the framework of government-funded scholarship programmes.

On Monday morning, EU foreign ministers engaged in almost two hours of negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Szijjártó told reporters that none of the parties’ standpoints caused a surprise at the meeting and that although there were several tough questions the meeting was conducted in good spirits and without hostility.

“According to the Government, a session of the EU-Israel Association Council must be held as soon as possible, since it has been a particularly long time since the Council was last convened”. As he explained, certain differences in political opinion must not be allowed to hijack the development of economic cooperation in view of the fact that Israel is one of the world’s front-runners in digitalisation and innovation, and tightening cooperation is clearly in Europe’s interests. In addition, deepening cooperation against terrorism is also of key importance to both parties, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said.

(MTI)