“The Visegrád Group will remain unified despite all attempts to break up the alliance, and this includes the issue of migration, as they made clear before each other and others at the informal meeting of V4 and European Union foreign minsters”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Friday in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Tallinn, the site of the meeting.

“We will continue to reject illegal immigration and fight against the mandatory resettlement quota. We will not accept that others should be allowed to force onto us a failed decision that also poses a danger to people, namely the mandatory resettlement quota”, Mr Szijjártó added. “Furthermore, there is underhanded trickery going on in Europe from several perspectives with relation to the resettlement quotas”, he declared.

Firstly, they are “underhandedly” keeping secret the fact that they are planning to introduce a permanent mechanism instead of the previously put forward temporary distribution process. Secondly, they are being underhanded with relation to the results so far, in view of the fact that only 25 percent of the quota has been successfully realised over the space of two years. In other words, countries that are pathetically praising the decision have also only implemented a maximum of 25 of the decision, such that it was made two years ago and there are only 18 days left to implement it, meaning no significant change can be expected in these figures”, the Minister said

“Thirdly, Europe is also being deceitful with regard to the fact that they want to blame the total failure of the implementation of distribution on those who have been sincere throughout instead of being evasive. The countries of the Visegrád Group are included in this category”, he declared. “We have put forward our opinion on the resettlement quota sincerely throughout, and have always made it clear that we regard it as a security risk and do not want to risk our countries and the security of the people who live in them”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister declared.

On the sidelines of the meeting of foreign ministers, Mr. Szijjártó also held bilateral talks with, amongst others, the host of the event, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius, with who he determined that cooperation between the two countries is exemplary, in addition to which Lithuania is extremely appreciative of the fat that Hungary regularly shows solidarity with the Baltic States. In this spirit of this solidarity, 1430 Hungarian military personnel are currently stationed in the Baltic, and in 2019 Hungary will again be contributing to protecting Baltic airspace within the framework of NATO.  The two countries are also working in close cooperation within the United Nations; Lithuania supported Hungary’s bid for membership of the Human Rights Council, in exchange for which Hungary is also supporting Lithuania’s various bids for membership. Both countries have an interests in the establishment of a comprehensive and fair agreement between Great Britain and the EU as a final result of the Brexit negotiations. The two ministers signed an agreement on the mutual protection of classified data, thanks to which security cooperation between the two countries may develop further.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)