FM Szijjártó: Africa crucial for Europe

Europe needs to make use of African energy sources in order to overcome its energy crisis, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Tangier on Wednesday, adding that this required infrastructure developments.

Hungary is urging the European Union to consider Africa a partner with whom cooperation is the interest of not just Africans but also Europeans, Szijjártó said at a panel discussion at the international MEDays Forum, according to a ministry statement.

Hungary will be “very active” in its support for African infrastructure developments in Brussels, the minister said.

Szijjártó said the construction of the planned EastMed gas pipeline would be crucial not just to Africa, but Europe as well, arguing that energy cooperation was impossible without infrastructure developments.

Hungarians, he said, believed connectivity and global cooperation were the answer to the challenges faced by the world.

Communication channels should be kept open, he said, underlining the importance of “leaving behind the idea of colonialism”.

He said an absence of physical links could be “destructive” when it came to economic and trade ties.

Szijjártó said that when the countries of the central European region had recognised that connectivity led to “success stories”, everything had become much easier, and relations among them had improved.

He said infrastructure developments were the key to economic growth in Africa.

Europe has a vested interest in developing Africa, the minister said, arguing that if the continent’s economic circumstances did not improve, Europe would not be able to manage the mass influx of immigrants from there.

This was why, he said, it was crucial to promote European investments in Africa. He said Hungary was prepared to contribute its advanced water management technologies which it has already provided to Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya.

Hungarian companies have also been tasked with a 600 million dollar project to develop public road links in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he said.

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