Hungarian government says EU is in terrible state and needs Balkans states’ accession – VIDEOS

“It is impossible” for Ukraine to join the European Union before the Western Balkan states as that would be contrary to a merit-based process, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said in a panel discussion of the Budapest Balkans Forum on Thursday.

Péter Szijjártó told the forum that “while the community is in a terrible state economically as well as regarding security,” the region’s states have been waiting for accession for 14.5 years on average. He slammed the “hypocrisy of certain member states, which talk very differently in public from what they say behind closed doors”. “When they speak publicly, they are always positive about the enlargement … but when we come together, the 27 of us behind closed doors, then we who support the enlargement find ourselves in the minority,” he said.

Merit-based accession required

“When it comes to the point, when we must talk about real issues rather than propaganda … then the majority of member states opposes enlargement,” he said. “We mustn’t shame and humiliate the countries of the Western Balkans, and misleading them is tantamount to humiliation,” Szijjártó said. Szijjártó highlighted the importance of a merit-based accession process, and said that it must be applied to all applicants. “Ukraine is hardly better prepared for accession than the countries of the Western Balkans.”

“If we equate merit with whether a country is in war or not, that should be said openly,” he added. The accession of the Western Balkans states would strengthen the bloc significantly, he said, adding that the EU was in dire need of such a boost as the US and China had left it behind in the global economy.

European Commission failed, says Szijjártó

He said the main cause was that the European Commission had failed to take measures to counter protectionist measures from the US in good time. “We have known since November that Donald Trump is the new president of the US … We knew he wanted to introduce tariffs … and now we are surprised that exactly that happened.” “Why did the EC not act proactively and set up a coordination platform? We were observing events from the trenches. This is not the right approach,” Szijjártó said.

Western Balkans’ EU accession ‘necessary and beneficial’

Hungary’s European Union presidency showed that the EU accession of the Western Balkans countries is “not only necessary and beneficial, but also possible”, János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, told an international conference in Budapest on Thursday. In the two-and-a-half-year period before Hungary’s six-month presidency, not a single accession chapter was opened or closed with the Western Balkans countries, Bóka said at the Budapest Balkans Forum.

The Hungarian presidency proved that it was possible to achieve visible results when it comes to the EU accession of the Western Balkans, Bóka said. Meanwhile, he hailed Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen zone as “the shared success of all member states”, adding that it was the Hungarian presidency that had found the political consensus for it. Hungary, he said, had also played a key role in regional cooperation on border protection, as well as curbing illegal migration, organised crime and people smuggling.

Bóka said the Western Balkans had played a “key and innovative role” in the fight against illegal migration, adding that he believed that seeking innovative solutions was now “part of the mainstream”.

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