Hungary-Serbia joint government summit gets under way

The joint Hungary-Serbia government summit got under way on Friday with a meeting of Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, and Jadranka Joksimovic, Serbia’s EU affairs minister.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that Szijjártó emphasised Hungary’s commitment to supporting Serbia’s European Union integration endeavours, “whose success we regard the most important element of securing stability in the Western Balkans”. The ministers agreed that the Hungarian government would continue to assist Serbia with its EU negotiations.

Hungary, he added, fully supports the Bulgarian EU Presidency in opening as many negotiating chapters as possible with Serbia in the first half of the year.

Thanks to good political relations, economic and trade cooperation between Hungary and Serbia is also positive, Szijjártó told journalists. “Political cooperation between Hungary and Serbia has never been as good as it is now,” he said. The efforts of the current Serbian president must be recognised for “steps taken towards historical reconciliation between the two countries,” he added.

In 2016 bilateral trade amounted to 1.9 billion euros and reached 2.3 billion euros in the first 11 months of last year, the minister noted. Trade is expected to reach 2.5 billion euros by the end of this year, he added.

Meanwhile, as part of its economic development programme geared towards Vojvodina, the Hungarian government has supported 6,200 bidders with a total of 10 billion forints, Szijjártó said. This programme has benefitted the economy of Vojvodina as a whole and strengthened the local Hungarian community, and the government plans to continue it with the approval of the Serbian government, he added.