Government regrets EU’s ‘No’ on Western Balkans, Georgia integration

“Brussels and every capital in western Europe should understand that soon it will be difficult to talk about security in Europe without integrating the Western Balkans into the European Union,” Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Friday.

“We in the neighbourhood of the Western Balkans are fully aware how important stability in that region is, and it would be good if this were understood in western Europe, too,” Szijjártó said in a video message on Facebook. Referring to European Council decisions passed on Thursday, Szijjártó said “they caused disappoinment in several countries aspiring to join the EU.”

Szijjártó noted his talks by phone with Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as with Milorad Dodik, Serb member of the presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Dodik, referring to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s political divisions, said “there is one question in which everybody has arrived at a consensus … namely the importance of European integration”, Szijjártó quoted him as saying.

• Read also: Hungary to launch a EUR 30 million economic development programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb Autonomous Republic

“It would be good if the EU helped Bosnians to reinforce that consensus,” he said.

Szijjártó said he regretted that Georgia had not been granted EU candidate status. “We think that country has implemented all measures required for candidacy,” he added. Georgia and its leaders are committed to joining and

“we cannot understand why such a discouraging decision was passed”,

he said.

The minister said he was leaving for Georgia “to confirm our support to our Georgian friends’ EU integration”.

Read alsoHungarian foreign minister: EU needs the Western Balkans more than the other way round

Source: MTI