Hungary opens new consulate to support holidaymakers

Hungary has opened a consulate in Thessaloniki to better serve Hungarian tourists in northern Greece, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Monday, adding that the new office will be the fifth foreign mission shared with Serbia.

New consulate inside the Serbian consulate building

Nearly 600,000 Hungarians visited Greece last year, spending over three million guest nights and making it the second most popular destination for Hungarian travellers, Szijjártó said at the consulate’s inauguration, according to a ministry statement.

The number of Hungarian-Greek marriages is also up, and more and more Hungarians employed by multinationals are living in Greece, the minister said. This, along with emergency situations over the past years, he added, further increased demand for broader consular services.

“Given Greece’s vast distances and many islands, providing consular services from Athens alone is simply impractical,” Szijjártó said. The consulate, located within the Serbian consulate building, will ensure faster processing of consular affairs and immediate assistance in emergencies from April to October each year, Szijjártó said.

Highest mutual trust with Serbia

He described the arrangement as “innovative and cost-effective”, following successful joint operations with Serbia in Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Montenegro.

“This level of cooperation requires the highest mutual trust and is unique to our partnership with Serbia,” he said.

Szijjártó also highlighted ongoing strategic projects, including the upcoming Budapest-Belgrade railway line and talks to acquire Russia’s stake in Serbia’s NIS oil company, which would boost regional energy security.

“We often say that practical results, not ideology, are the measure of a foreign policy strategy’s success,” Szijjártó said. “Today’s event is one of the best examples of this: a tangible success that will directly benefit our citizens.”