“A strong EU is impossible without a strong Central and Southeastern Europe”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared on Monday in Budapest.

At a press conference held following a meeting of ministers from the countries of the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the V4), Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary’s chief diplomat highlighted: “We have nothing to be ashamed about” with relation to strengthening Europe, because “we, here in Central Europe” have proven that illegal migration can be stopped and we are producing higher growth than the EU average, meaning we are contributing to a major extent to the strengthening of the EU.

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He added that accordingly the region is justified in harbouring expectations towards the EU, and expects the European Union to assure the continued existence of the Schengen Area, facilitate the establishment of Central European energy security, and accelerate EU enlargement, he added.

It is an important interest for the Schengen Area to “finally begin working normally again”; for the external borders to be protected, but for internal borders to be permeable and the regulations to be upheld, the Foreign Minister declared. This is also important from the point of view of competitiveness, and “the collapse of the Schengen system would be a coup de grace for the whole European economy”, and accordingly its continued existence is in everyone’s interests; it would not be good if it were sacrificed “on the altar of hypocritical politics”, he said.

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With relation to energy security, we reject double standards and expect the EU to facilitate diversification, because new energy transport routes are required to enable progress within the field of energy security, he noted.

We have taken a stance in support of accelerating EU enlargement; it is important to speed up the Western Balkan accession process, because it would be the easiest way of keeping the tensions in the region in check, Mr. Szijjártó said. Hungary believes it would be a political, economic and security risk if the EU failed to accelerate enlargement, and Hungary will continue to do everything in its power to assure that Serbia’s accession process is accelerated”, he said.

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In reply to a question, the Minister highlighted: Hungary’s standpoint on migration is “clear and rock solid”; illegal immigration represents a danger, because never before have we had to face such a high terrorist threat in Europe. Encouraging illegal immigration in any way is against Europe’s interests, and instead illegal immigration must be stopped at least at Europe’s external borders; the EU must be capable of protecting its own external borders, following which it must broker agreements that enable decisions on who can enter Europe legally to be made outside the territory of the European Union, he explained.

In reply to another question, Mr. Szijjártó told the press that at the hearing of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Hungary scheduled for Thursday in Brussels he will be raising the question of how it is possible that those who are loudly praising the mandatory resettlement quota have only implemented 25 percent of their quotas on average. He said that in his opinion the quota is contrary to Europe’s security interests, because it is encouraging hundreds of thousands of people to set out for Europe even if it means risking their lives.

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According to Mr. Szijjártó, in addition the mandatory resettlement quota is impossible to implement because there can be no guarantee that people will not move on to the country they originally wanted to go to regardless. “We reject the fact that the notion of solidarity is being monopolised” to refer exclusively to the implementation of the quota; Hungary has spent 800 million euros on border protection, towards which it has only received assistance from the V4, while the EU has criticised it instead of supporting the country”, he said.

(MTI)