Minister shared when Hungary might approve Sweden’s NATO accession

The partnership between the European Union and Türkiye must be “closer than ever” to boost the continent’s physical and energy security, and improve its ailing competitiveness, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday, after meeting his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. The newly appointed minister’s first official visit lead to Hungary, proving the country’s crucial place in the Turkish foreign policy.

Szijjártó told a joint press conference after the talks that it was a “great honour and friendly gesture… and proof of strategic relations” that Hungary was the first country Hadan visited after he was appointed foreign minister. Türkiye’s weight in the world is larger than ever in the “new geopolitical and world economic era”, and the country is key to the physical and energy security of Hungary and the whole of Europe, Szijjártó said. “As with its politics Brussels is constantly increasing migration pressure on our southern border, it is highly important that Türkiye should mitigate it,” he said, according to a statement by the foreign ministry, MTI wrote.

“Should Türkiye not take border protection seriously, should it not keep the some million migrants there, the pressure on the external borders of the EU, and so on Hungary, would become unbearable,” he said. Szijjártó praised Ankara’s migrant policy, noting the financial burden posed by related border protection measures. “We can understand this problem because we have also spent several hundreds of billions of forints on border protection, and got only 1 percent of it reimbursed by the EU,” the foreign minister said.

Türkye-Hungary energy cooperation

Türkiye is also of paramount importance in terms of Hungary’s energy security, as most of Russian natural gas imported by the country arrives via the TurkStream pipeline, he said. Without that, meeting Hungary’s energy demands would become impossible, he said. Hungary has received some 2 billion cubic metres of gas via TurkStream this year already, a great boost to winter reserves, said Szijjártó. Hungary’s gas reserves are 48 percent full, compared with the EU’s average of 25 percent, he said. Talks are under way on Hungary’s direct purchases from Türkiye, which would make Türkiye inevitable when diversifying Hungarian energy resources, the foreign minister said.