Hungarian FM: Serbia key to EU competitivness

Enlargement could swiftly improve the European Union’s competitiveness, and so the bloc needs Serbia more than Serbia needs the EU, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Belgrade on Wednesday.

Szijjártó told a business forum organised by the Serbian chamber of economy that while the “realignment in world economy” has harmed the EU, it is also severing important trading ties due to political considerations, and “they practically make east-west cooperation impossible”.

“Whoever tries a pragmatic approach to the issue and tries to take a rational look at the relationship between East and West is branded pro-Russian, pro-Putin and accused of being a propagandist of the Kremlin,” he said.

Economic players are further hobbled by EU measures and the US’s steps to prioritise its own companies, he said. “Meanwhile, Europe is shooting itself in the leg with the sanctions,” he said.

Reliable partners and partnerships are key to being successful under such circumstances, he said.

Enlarging the bloc and thereby its economic market would greatly improve competitiveness, Szijjártó added. “That is why we don’t approve of the high-browed and condenscending approach towards Serbia,” he said.

Hungary is a great supporter of the Open Balkan initiative, Szijjártó said. The government has suggested to hold the next summit of the group comprising Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia in Budapest, he added.

Close cooperation between the EU and the states in the region is a key element of competitiveness, as is energy security, he said.

Hungary and Serbia “can only count on each other” in the latter issue, he said, referring to recent agreements to build a new oil pipeline and to set up a Hungarian-Serbia conglomerate to trade in natural gas. Supply security in Hungary and Serbia has become impossible without each other, he said.

Meanwhile, bilateral trade has jumped by 59 percent to nearly 6 billion euros last year, and Hungary’s OTP Bank is one of the largest in Serbia, he said.

The government will also carry on with its economic development programme for ethnic Hungarians in Serbia, he added.

Hungary’s recent run of record investments has led to an increased demand for skilled labour, Péter Szijjártó told an event organised by Prohuman in Belgrade, according to a foreign ministry statement. Though the aim is for these positions to be filled by Hungarian workers, it has to be said that certain positions are very hard to fill locally, Szijjártó added.

Hungary has therefore decided to allow the employment of guest workers for a definite period under regulated conditions, the minister said.

He noted a framework under which qualified recruitment firms can bring in guest workers from 15 countries without a special authorisation procedure.

Serbia is one of those 15 countries, Szijjártó said, adding that the skill, discipline and work ethic of Serbian workers made them popular among Hungarian employers.

Currently 5,430 Serbian citizens have Hungarian work permits after 1,353 people were recruited last year, he said.

Szijjártó welcomed that Prohuman, Hungary’s biggest staffing company, had entered the Serbian market, saying it would hopefully lead to the addition of a new “labour market dimension” to Hungary and Serbia’s strategic cooperation.

Source: MTI