According to Hungary’s view, the issue of terrorism cannot be separated from that of migration – Minister of State for EU Affairs of the Prime Minister’s Office told Hungarian journalists after the meeting of the EU Ministers in charge of EU Affairs.

One of the main goals of the Tuesday meeting was to prepare for the unofficial EU summit to be held on Thursday, and more specifically, to review the questions related to security and terrorism.

Szabolcs Takács informed journalists about his statement at the meeting, according to which Hungary welcomes the strengthening of cooperation in this field and supports the initiative of the European Parliament to engage in an active dialogue on sharing the airline passenger database and on information exchange aimed at screening persons posing a potential threat.

According to the Minister of State, it is important to prevent the Schengen accomplishments – that guarantee the freedom of movement – of becoming a victim of the situation created by the threat of terrorism. “The greatest challenge for us is to reinforce and protect the external borders of the European Union and the Schengen area.” – Mr Takács said.

“I have informed my partners that Hungary (…) faces extremely serious problems in the field of illegal migration” – the Minister of State said, adding that he welcomes the fact that the statement to be accepted at the Thursday summit “defines the geographic radius of security discussions to not only include the Middle East and North African regions: we wish to promote a more substantive and constructive dialogue on security issues with countries of the Western Balkans as well.”

Central Europe is a sensitive region as it may provide a transit route to extremists going to, or coming from the crisis-hit regions of the Middle East – Mr Takács said, underpinning his statement, according to which “we cannot separate the question of terrorism from that of illegal migration”. In his view, if the aim was to have a substantive discussion that deals with all segments of the topic, “we cannot hide our heads in the sand”, illegal migration is a part of the problem that should be solved jointly.

(Prime Minister's Office)