Foreign minister: Growing number of countries reject UN Migration Compact

An increasing number of countries have raised objections against the UN’s Global Migration Compact and are expected to reject its adoption, Hungary’s foreign minister said in Parliament on Monday.

There are at least 13 countries that will vote against the compact in the UN General Assembly on December 19, Péter Szijjártó told at a hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Those include the Visegrád Four group formed by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, as well as Bulgaria, Latvia, Austria, the United States, Israel, Australia, Dominica and Brazil, he said.

Hungary will also reject a “sister document”, the Global Compact on Refugees which he said would allow migrants to enter Europe “through a backdoor”, he said.

Concerning Hungarians in Ukraine, Szijjártó said that “Hungarian communities across the border will not be sacrificed for geopolitical interests or under international pressure”. Western allies exert “unbelievable pressure” on Hungary to give up its position vetoing Ukraine’s NATO integration, he insisted, but added that Hungary would insist until “Ukraine drops its anti-Hungarian policies”.

“I don’t care what Russia thinks about that matter,” he added.

On the subject of economic aid to ethnic Hungarian communities, Szijjártó noted that subsidies under the programme have so far totalled 60 billion forints (EUR 186m), the largest part, 38 billion forints, going to Hungarians in Serbia’s Vojvodina province.

Szijjártó said that the government had concluded an agreement with Russia’s Gazprom concerning the quantity and price of gas to be supplied to Hungary next year. He added that “we need to keep all irons in the fire to maintain the country’s energy security”.

“We need to talk to everybody and here, too, we must not yield to any pressure aimed at excluding a source,” he said.

Szijjártó insisted that large western European companies, together with Gazprom, were planning a gas pipeline from Russia to western Europe bypassing Ukraine, while central Europe is being left out of the scheme. “After all that we are stigmatised as Russian spies,” Szijjártó said, and added that Russia’s international assessment was “incorrect”.

Concerning the US, Szijjártó said that the country was Hungary’s largest export market outside Europe. He added that western Europe “creates artificial hysteria” around President Donald Trump, “in which Hungary has never taken part”.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/UnitedNations

Source: MTI