EU foreign ministers in Bratislava – Szijjártó highlights importance of security for Europe

Pozsony (MTI) – Issues around security must be of primary importance in shaping the European Union’s policies, the Hungarian foreign minister said in Pozsony (Bratislava) on Friday.

On the sidelines of an informal meeting of his European counterparts, Péter Szijjártó told MTI that migration has created an “extraordinary threat of terrorism”, with more violence committed against women and more crime in general.

“Europe is facing a security crisis,” the minister said, adding that security should be a primary aspect when making political decisions at an EU level.

To promote security in Europe, Szijjártó said a common European military was needed, while “Brussels should leave those countries alone that are working to protect their own borders”. He noted that Hungary had decided to build a new fence along its border with Serbia.

Szijjártó also suggested that critics of the Turkish government should stop: “those who lambast Turkey’s democratically elected government and its president are in fact attacking Europe’s security”. Unless Turkey is a stable country, it will not be able to hold up the wave of immigrants at its borders, he argued.

Countries in the Middle East and North Africa that could stop migrants should be supported, while stability in the Western Balkans should be ensured through integrating its countries into the European Union, the minister said.

On another subject, Szijjártó said that in light of “no progress” in the implementation of the Minsk Agreement, the EU will need to “evaluate its earlier steps and decide if sanctions against Russia have met expectations and assess what harm the sanctions have done to Europe’s economies”.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI