France and Hungary agree that the management of the migration crisis both by the European Union and by the Member States continues to remain a priority issue, Szabolcs Takács, State Secretary for EU Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office told MTI on Friday after he had talks in Paris.

The State Secretary was received by Philippe Léglise-Costa, Secretary General for European Affairs in the Office of the President of France.

Both parties take the view that, despite the major challenges caused by migration, „the Schengen system must be protected because it is an organic fabric of integration which is among the most significant achievements for the citizens of the EU”, Mr Takács said. At the same time, in his view, in order to protect free movement within the EU, it is necessary to take care of the protection of the external borders which has not been successful to date. „Preserving our achievements is important because if Schengen did not work, this would have an impact on other facets of integration as well”, he pointed out.

France and Hungary, too, share the view that the protection of the borders should remain a fundamentally national power, and the common European border protection force which is currently being set up must function as a supplementary force in the case of Member States which are unable to protect their own borders on their own. In the State Secretary’s view, the two countries further agree that the attempts of the European Union to resolve the migration crisis in recent months have been only partially successful or do not work at all.

Regarding the EU reform proposals of the British Government, Paris takes the view that should Britain exit the EU in the wake of a referendum, it would debilitate the European Union. The State Secretary therefore believes that the British Government and pro-European forces in the UK could be best assisted if the rest of the Member States remained upon to a dialogue in order to ensure that the EU continues to remain attractive for the British. Achieving a “balanced compromise” through the enhancement of competitiveness, the improvement of the position of small and medium-sized businesses, and the reinforcement of the role of national parliaments in the process of European decision-making, Mr Takács stressed.

The State Secretary told his French counterpart that Hungary would not like to see a discriminatory solution to the issue of the free movement of citizens which emerged in the context of the British inwork benefit system and is not in favour of any solution that would differentiate between EU nationals in any way. At the same time, Hungary is seeking to reach a compromise in the reform of the British social welfare system.

Mr Takács told his partner: upon the planning of the European budget, our European partners should take account of the fact that the absorption and utilisation of EU funds is the best in Hungary by regional standards. In other words, Hungary has proved that the cohesion policy is a viable strategy.
Both France and Hungary are committed to nuclear energy, and have a vested interest in maintaining the national sovereignty of Member States in the selection of their preferred energy mix, the State Secretary pointed out.

As the Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), Mr Takács discussed the achievements of the Hungarian Chairmanship with Roger Cukierman, President of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, Haim Korsia, Chief Rabbi of France and Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay, head of the French IHRA delegation.

The State Secretary takes the view that the series of terrible attacks which France has recently sustained casts a shadow on the situation of the Jewish community in Western-Europe. „There is a new type of anti-Semitism in the western part of Europe, and IHRA, which fundamentally focuses on education, could play a role in combatting this as education provides a means in the medium term as well as in the long run for achieving social integration, tolerance and understanding, the lack of which is causing the development of deep fault lines in societies at present”, the State Secretary said.

Mr Takács told MTI: his partners greatly appreciated the fact that the Hungarian Chairmanship succeeded in achieving that the European Parliament approved a text for the new EU data protection legislation which does not restrict historical research related to the Holocaust. There were instances in the past in several Western-European countries when archive research was denied with reference to data protection laws.

(Prime Minister's Office)