EU faces unprecedented challenges, Szijjártó tells Dubrovnik Forum

Dubrovnik, August 26 (MTI) – The European Union has never faced as many and as difficult challenges simultaneously as it does today, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said at the Dubrovnik Forum on Friday.

The pressure of migration, the threat of terrorism, the British vote to leave the EU and the war in Ukraine increasingly appear to pose unresolved challenges to the EU, he said at the international foreign policy and security policy meeting in Croatia.

He presented a list of four proposals by the Hungarian government for the EU to be able “to find a way out from this extremely difficult situation”.

First of all, the EU “must protect itself” and “it is necessary to give up on the unsustainable European practice of encouraging thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands to storm the borders of the EU and EU countries and violate them,” he said.

Szijjártó described the European Commission’s past decisions on migration as “damaging and flawed” and said it is necessary to set off in a new direction to manage the migration crisis, leaving the path that the EC and European institutions have followed so far.

The EU’s expansion to the western Balkans needs to be accelerated, he said. The western Balkans and southeastern Europe have repeatedly proven to be extremely unstable and fragile, and this can be best changed by expanding EU integration.

The third proposal presented by Szijjártó is to not grant further powers to Brussels. The stronger the EU member states are, the stronger the EU will be, he added. As it has been seen, only those responses to the recent challenges have been successful that have been made by the member states, he said.

Lastly, he said Europe needs strong and resolute leaders who are democratically elected. All attacks against democratically elected leaders in the EU or near the EU are attacks against EU security, he added.

On the forum’s sidelines, Szijjártó held talks with Petru Sorin, Romania’s transport minister. They agreed that Hungary would connect its motorway M4 with Romania’s A3 in 2018, the Hungarian foreign ministry said in a statement. A border crossing station will be built by Hungary, it said, adding that the project’s technical preparation has already begun.

Source: MTI