On Friday, following a conference organised to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the International Visegrád Fund, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told the press that the cooperation of the Visegrád Group has never been as important as it is now, as due to the migration crisis, the European Union is currently facing the gravest challenge of its history.
In his address given at a conference jointly organised by Antall József Knowledge Centre, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the International Visegrád Fund, Mr. Szijjártó said that due to the hypocritical and incapable politics of Europe, no common European answer could be found. “It was only the Central European countries who provided solutions to the migration crisis not only on the level of words, but that of action as well”, he said.
Mr. Szijjártó emphasised that it must become clear to every European leader that Europe is vulnerable, and it will remain so as long as it is unable to protect is external borders.
In Mr. Szijjártó’s view, the only model, which is successful in treating the migration crisis is the Hungarian one. If Europe followed Hungary’s lead, it could successfully manage the challenge. He added that the Hungarian model could not have been established without the Visegrád countries, because the help of the Slovaks, Czech and Polish was needed to achieve that today, Hungary can only be entered in full compliance of both Hungarian and European regulations.
The Minister explained that European leaders should not only be talking about the protection of external borders, they should actually be doing it instead. So far, no real step has been taken in this direction, he said.
Mr. Szijjártó pointed out that it seems that the European Union and the Schengen zone are protected by a country in the south that is neither a Member State of the EU, nor a part of the Schengen zone. “Today, it is basically thanks to Macedonia that the migration pressure on Europe has eased”, he said, adding that the fact that the southern border of the Schengen zone was has moved to the northern border of Greece has resulted in an unusual and peculiar situation. He was of the opinion that the EU should pay special attention to Macedonia, and it should offer the country support to protect Europe.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)
