Minister shared how Hungary and Slovakia can solve complicated problems

Through “building joint successes”, Hungary and Slovakia will be able to solve its most complicated problems, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Monday, adding that better relations between Hungary and Slovakia will also improve the situation for ethnic Hungarians.

Szijjártó said in an interview with Danubia Television after the recent opening of a new bridge at Ipolydamasd that Slovakia is Hungary’s second most important trade partner, with bilateral trade reaching a record 17 billion euros last year. Citing examples of Slovak-Hungarian cooperation, he said Slovaks had helped Hungary protect its southern borders, the two countries had stood up jointly against mandatory resettlement quotas, they had connected their electricity networks and also had a gas pipeline connection. Additionally, Hungarian oil company MOL’s Slovak subsidiary is one of the largest companies in Slovakia, he said.

Such success stories are “able to create the basis for mutual trust” in order to discuss difficult issues, he added. Commenting on the approaching parliamentary elections in Slovakia, he said the government was rooting for the ethnic Hungarian party to achieve good results and ethnic Hungarians to have a strong representation in Bratislava. “Nobody can view this as interfering in domestic politics,” he added.

He said Hungary was also rooting for Slovakia to have a government that considers Hungarian-Slovak cooperation important and which sees it as an opportunity rather than a problem. “All we can do is to fully accept the decision of Slovak voters because who else could make a more legitimate decision in Slovak matters than the people of Slovakia,” he added.

Official: Slovakia FM believes in arms deliveries, ‘but there’s only death on battlefield’

Slovakia’s foreign minister would have a reason to believe in weapons deliveries to Ukraine if the war could be resolved on the battlefield, “but it can’t be”, Tamas Menczer, the state secretary for bilateral relations, said on Monday. “There is only death on the battlefield, but no solution,” Menczer told MTI. “That is exactly the reason why we should be deciding about peace instead of weapons.”

“It is true that this decision must also be made in Moscow,” Menczer said. “And in Washington as well, and Brussels will follow the latter.” “The Hungarian government’s position is unchanged: it is peace, not weapons, that should be taken to Ukraine,” the state secretary said. In a Facebook post on Sunday, Menczer asked: “Why should the European Union plan to finance weapons shipments for Ukraine if there is no war in the next four years?”

The state secretary reacted to remarks by Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Wlachovsky, who had said earlier on Twitter that “the war could end tomorrow; Russia is the problem rather than the EU.” Menczer noted that at the last Foreign Affairs Council meeting, EU foreign ministers had discussed a proposal under which an annual 5 billion euros could be spent on financing weapons deliveries for Ukraine in the next four years.