“At Thursday’s meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels, Montenegro will be signing an agreement on joining the military organisation, which significantly contributes to the stability of the Western Balkan region”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said prior to the meeting.
At his press conference, the Minister stressed that the Euro-Atlantic community hasn’t had to face as many simultaneous security threats and challenges since the end of the Cold War, and the best reaction to these is the expansion of NATO.
Isolation would be a strategic mistake, because “the more of us there are, the stronger we are”, stressed Mr. Szijjártó, according to whom the North Atlantic Alliance must continue to offer the possibility of accession to countries who “share our values and would like to become a member of the community”.
Mr. Szijjártó declared that Macedonia and Georgia also deserve the opportunity to join the Alliance, and for this reason Hungary is urging NATO to launch Membership Action Plan (MAP) procedures, which is regarded as the “anteroom” for NATO membership, with regard to both countries at the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw. He added, however, that this standpoint does not currently seem to have a majority within NATO.
With relation to Russian reactions in protest of Montenegro’s accession to NATO, Mr. Szijjártó stressed that this is not a confrontational step against Russia and that the region’s stability is also in the interests of Moscow, and the accession makes the “region, which is extremely vulnerable politically, economically and with regard to Islamic radicalism” more resistant.
NATO Foreign Ministers will also be discussing challenges from the south at their meeting on Thursday, with relation to which Mr. Szijjártó explained that Hungary is open to discussing the possibility of the Alliance becoming involved in some way in the work of the international coalition against the Islamic State terrorist organisation.
126 Hungarian soldiers are currently serving in the region of Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Government plans to increase their number to 150 by the end of the year, the Minister said, adding that the training programme for Jordanian, Iraqi and Kurdish military personnel will begin in Hungary during the second half of this year, which will also contribute to reducing the threat from the South.
In addition, Mr. Szijjártó told the press that in the interests of increasing NATO’s collective defence capabilities the Government has decided to extend the programme, which was originally planned to run until 2022, and is undertaking to increase its defence spending by 0.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) until 2026.
Montenegro’s accession protocol must also be ratified by NATO’s 28 Member States, which could take around 12-18 months, according to experts. Albania and Croatia were the last countries to join NATO in 2009, both neighbours of Montenegro, which has a population of 600 thousand.