Despite Georgia’s controversial foreign agent law Hungary still committed to its EU integration

Hungary will provide Georgia with all support to protect its sovereignty and accelerate that country’s European Union integration, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with his Georgian counterpart, Ilia Darchiashvili, in Budapest on Friday.

The Hungarian government will continue to promote Georgia’s EU integration “with all its might” and will do everything to forward the process during Hungary’s current EU presidency, the foreign ministry quoted Szijjártó as saying.

Fast developing countries such as Georgia “could lend a great momentum to the European Union, whose competitiveness has significantly decreased recently, therefore it is also in the EU’s fundamental interest that Georgia should join,” Szijjártó told a joint press conference held with his counterpart.

The minister highlighted the progress in bilateral ties, noting that the turnover of bilateral trade had increased by 2.5 times since 2010, and Hungary’s Wizz Air had become an air traffic market leader in Georgia.

Szijjártó noted that they signed an agreement on the reciprocal protection of investments.

Caucasian-central European success story on the horizon

On another subject, Szijjártó said Georgia could be crucial for improving Europe’s energy security, diversification of energy sources and green transition. Hungary and Romania, in cooperation with Azerbaijan and Georgia have made great progress in facilitating the imports of green energy from the latter two countries, Szijjártó said. The cooperation is aimed at building “the longest submarine electric power line in the world”, Szijjártó said, adding that a feasibility study was being prepared while the four countries were about to set up a joint venture for the purpose. “All conditions are in place for a great, Caucasian-central European success story,” he said.