EU-Kazakh Cooperation Council meeting in Luxembourg: Hungary supports closer ties

EU cooperation with Central Asia could reap huge rewards, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said at an EU-Kazakh Cooperation Council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, adding that Europeans had cottoned on to the region’s significance 10-12 years after the Hungarian government decided to intensify ties with the region.

Chairing the meeting, Szijjártó said that nobody any longer called in question Central Asia’s significance, but 14 years ago the Hungarian government had been slammed for building strong strategic relations with the region.

“I’m glad that … today everybody acknowledges the region’s significance,” he added, noting the new trade routes, energy security, and bulwark against terrorism that it provided.

“I believe that the freshness, the new energies and the new impetus the European Union needs can be won from your region,” Szijjártó said.

He said global energy networks were more and more burdened by the intensive use of heating and cooling systems as well as transport electrification, and nuclear energy was the safest, most sustainable and environmentally friendly way of meeting these needs.

The foreign minister noted that a recent national referendum held in Kazakhstan concerning the peaceful use of nuclear energy had paved the way to the construction of a nuclear power station in the country. “This could open new paths for energy cooperation with the EU as well,” he said.

“Our view is that the coming period must be about increased connectivity, and we firmly argue for this. I believe that cooperation between the EU and Central Asia could contribute to that goal,” the minister said.

At an earlier press conference, Szijjártó recalled that when the Hungarian government started to form ties with Central Asia in the early 2010s, “there were some who laughed at us and called our plan ludicrous, and there were others who heavily criticised us for political reasons. “Today those people and their successors are standing in line in Central Asia trying to build close cooperation.”

He noted that Kazakhstan, with the world’s second largest uranium reserves, is a leading uranium producer, and he argued that the EU would have to tap all kinds of international cooperation in order to harness the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

As we wrote a week ago, President of Kazakh parliament visits Hungary.

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