Europe has not had to face as many challenges as today since the Second World War, underlined Péter Szijjártó in Brussels on Tuesday at the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers organised by Belgium fulfilling the EU Council rotating presidency.
Briefing Hungarian journalists, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted the five main challenges of today: the Ukraine crisis, the frozen conflicts and regional debates, the most brutal terror threat of all times, the economic challenges ahead of the European Union, and the most serious illegal migration issue of all times.
"If we keep burying our heads in the sand and looking for half solutions, Europe will lag behind in the global competition even more, and get into an even worse situation and deeper crisis", the Minister explained.
The Minister reiterated that only a peaceful solution can be accepted in the case of Ukraine: every party has to comply with the Minsk agreements, and the mandate and capacity of the special monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have to be expanded as soon as possible.
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, North-Atlantic integration can no longer be delayed: clear signs of progress have to be showed towards Macedonia, Montenegro and Georgia on the path of integration. The Minister also emphasised that he saw no reason why Montenegro could not be invited to join NATO later this year, as it fulfils all necessary requirements. He said that Macedonia's legitimately elected government should be supported in the Euro-Atlantic integration, and the role of Georgia as the largest non-member state troop contributor to NATO missions should not be overlooked. Referring to Europe's terrorist threats, Mr. Szijjártó said that the fight against Islamic State and other terrorist organisations should be intensified, and Europe needs to deploy more troops in order to do so.
Regarding immigration, the Minister said that Europe has to admit that the problem needs to be solved outside Europe by efficiently using development funds for projects that improve living conditions so that people will not want to leave their home countries.
According to Péter Szijjártó, economic problems are only compounded by the fact that Europe puts up walls in front of Russia instead of building bridges. He underlined that ”it should be recognized that an intelligent and pragmatic dialogue is needed between the EU and the Eurasian Union”.