Security conference hold in Budapest – UPDATE

Budapest, February 25 (MTI) – Global threats have changed and become more complex over the recent period, making the security policy environment less predictable, Hungary’s foreign minister told a security conference in Budapest on Thursday.

The political, economic, social and technological changes underway are shaping a new world order, Péter Szijjártó said in an opening address to the event hosted by the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID).

There will be winners as well as losers in the whole process, and Hungary most certainly wants to be part of the first group, he told the conference that focuses on recent security challenges related to migration and tasks for the next NATO summit scheduled for July in Warsaw.

Szijjártó said that illegal migration has increased the threat of terrorism and deteriorated public security. For this reason, he said, halting mass migration is the most urgent task of the European Union.

This requires strengthening the protection of the EU’s southern borders collectively along with making efforts to eliminate the root causes of mass migration, Szijjártó said.

The minister highlighted the importance of cooperation among the Visegrad Four countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia at this time of crisis and the help the other three states provided for Hungary in protecting its borders.

Speaking to reporters, Szijjártó said the next NATO summit should discuss further enlargement of the alliance, accomplish the integration of Montenegro and offer Macedonia and Georgia the prospect of membership.

Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak told the conference that Slovakia and Hungary agree on the need to further enlarge NATO but their position is not shared commonly in the alliance.

Other members view enlargement as a provocative process that would destabilise the alliance, he said.

Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki said that only a rather small proportion of the around one million people who came to Europe last year are supposed to be radical terrorists. But this circumstance must not be underestimated in light of the fact that several culprits of the Paris attacks had turned out to have reached Europe via the Western Balkans.