In Barcelona on Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that unless the European Union responds rapidly and firmly to the processes taking place in neighbouring regions to the south and in the Middle East, it may soon face an unmanageable situation in terms of economy, security and migration.
“The situation in our southern and Middle Eastern neighbourhood is far worse and more unmanageable than at any time before”, the Hungarian minister explained. He stressed that, in addition to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the situation in Syria and Libya is escalating, while the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS) is gaining ever more territory and has launched a “brutal” attack against Westerns values. As a result, an increasing number of people want to flee the region, he said.
Mr. Szijjártó maintained that Europe must take action in four areas: to strengthen its stand in the fight against terrorism; to ensure even closer cooperation on energy issues; to do the same in the economic sphere; and to grant an increasing number of scholarships to young students from the EU’s neighbourhood – particularly from regions to the south and from the Middle East.
Speaking about the fight against terrorism, he highlighted the efforts being made to protect Christian communities. “As far as we are currently aware, over 750,000 Christians have been forced to leave their homes in the Middle East, while IS poses an increasing threat to shared western values, so European countries also need to intensify their efforts”, he said.
The Minister also mentioned that on Tuesday Parliament was due to vote on Hungary’s plan to send a contingent of 150 soldiers to Iraq to contribute to the fight against IS. The first group – comprising senior officers – could leave for Iraq as early as the second half of May. “Hungarian soldiers will carry out security and defence tasks at the training camp and will ensure safe movement for training personnel”, he said, in reply to a question from the news agency MTI.
Migration was another issue on the agenda of the foreign ministers’ meeting. They expressed the hope that the “pressure” can be reduced by economic stabilisation, and so the affected regions will be offered financial support of EUR 15.4 billion over the coming seven years. “We believe that free trade agreements with the countries of the region would also be needed, so Hungary will continue its programme of opening trading houses”, Mr. Szijjártó said.
Talking about the major challenges facing the EU, he said that Islamic radicalism must be stopped. In his opinion the best solution to this problem is to create a vision for young people living in the affected regions. Hungary already offers scholarships to one thousand students, and over the past 18 months has signed the relevant agreements on education with Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon.