Foreign ministry official discusses bilateral ties, migration in Sweden

Stockholm (MTI) – Foreign ministry state secretary László Szabó held talks in Stockholm over the past two days discussing, among others, bilateral ties and migration.

Szabó told MTI over the phone on Thursday that in talks with Swedish foreign ministry state secretary Annika Soder, they discussed Hungarian-Swedish political ties and their respective handling of Europe’s migrant crisis.

The two countries have taken significantly different approaches to migration, Szabó noted, but added that in talks with Soder, they had identified several aspects of the handling of the crisis that they could agree on.

He said Sweden had stopped accepting undocumented migrants, arguing that the country was now doing exactly what Hungary had been doing for a year and a half.

Szabó said he and the state secretary also discussed the European Union’s Eastern Partnership programme. The two countries agree that the EU should be further enlarged, he said.

He said Hungary and Sweden supported each other’s UN candidacies: Hungary supports Sweden’s candidacy for non-permanent membership on the Security Council and has the backing of Sweden in its own candidacy for membership on the UN Human Rights Council.

Szabó also held talks with Oscar Stenstrom, state secretary for the ministry of EU affairs and trade and deputy state secretary, and Karin Olofsdotter, former ambassador to Budapest, and discussed Hungary’s economic achievements of the past six years.

Szabó also met Ulf Pehrsson, vice-president for government and industry relations at Ericsson. He noted that Ericsson’s second biggest European R+D base is in Budapest. The company recently decided to move its Budapest headquarters to a new building, where its services and development departments will be under one roof. Ericsson’s Budapest base is in the process of developing fifth-generation mobile communications systems, Szabó noted.

Source: MTI