Central Europe ‘in opposition’ in EU, says Hungarian government office chief

Budapest (MTI) – What the central European countries represent is rather “in opposition” within the European Union, and the UK’s decision to quit the European Union makes things even worse for them, the government office chief told parliament’s EU affairs committee on Tuesday.

With the United Kingdom, a country that champions self-determination is leaving the bloc, János Lázár said at his annual hearing in the committee.

Concerning Brexit, Hungary advocates a solution which benefits Britain, the EU and the central European countries alike, he said.

“Britain will be one of Hungary’s largest non-EU trading partners so the conditions under which Brexit is executed will not be indifferent to it. Negotiations will hopefully offer an opportunity to rethink matters and herald a new beginning. We should return to the Lisbon Treaty because going beyond it would generate disputes,” Lázár said.

Lázár said that talks on the EU’s post-2020 budgetary period are well under way. He noted that Hungary had negotiated skillfully about the previous budget, and planned to retain as much EU funding as possible during the next term. He added that this concerns funding for agriculture and for catching up with more developed regions.

Ongoing infringement procedures mostly affect centrally regulated prices, arable land and trade policies, he said.

State secretary for European affairs Ferenc Szabolcs Takács told the committee that Hungary must pursue politics in the EU that suit Hungarian people’s interests. He added that the increasingly “objective assessment of Hungary’s economic policy” in the EU has been a positive development.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI