Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó concluded diplomatic, economic and education agreements during his one-day official visit to Costa Rica, from where he informed Hungarian news agency MTI by telephone from San José de Costa Rica on Wednesday evening local time.
“Hungary views Costa Rica as a bridgehead for building relations with Central America, and in our experience Costa Rica similarly views our country as a bridgehead for its relations with Central Europe and Europe in general”, the Minister said.
Mr. Szijjártó paid a visit to Minister of the Republic Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera, after which he held private negotiations with his Costa Rican counterpart, Manuel González Sanz, followed by a plenary meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in San José. The diplomatic, economic and education agreements were signed at the Ministry.
The first agreement concerns regular foreign affairs and diplomatic consultations, in addition to which a so-called collocation agreement was also concluded. This means that Costa Rica will provide places for Hungarian diplomats in its embassies in three other Central American countries (Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama), while Hungary will provide places for Costa Rican diplomats via its network of Central Asian embassies, Mr. Szijjártó explained, stressing that this latter agreement provides the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a cost-effective form of diplomatic representation.
The parties also agreed to expand economic cooperation, primarily within the field of water management in view of the fact that Costa Rica is capable of supplying itself with renewable energy, and primarily hydro-electric electricity, for several months of the year and therefore represents an excellent market for Hungarian water management technologies, Mr. Szijjártó noted. Since both countries view water management and climate protection as important, we have agreed on expert cooperation within these two fields, he added.
Within the framework of the education agreement, Hungary will be providing ten scholarships to enable students from Costa Rica to attend Hungarian universities.
Also present at the meetings in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were Deputy Foreign Minister Jhon Fonesca and Monica Umana, Food Industry and Light Manufacturing Director of the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE).
“Hungary’s economic relations with Costa Rica are developing dynamically: trade flow increase by 51 percent to 20 million US Dollars last year and tripled during the first half of this year”, Mr. Szijjártó stressed in his telephone report.
During his bilateral meeting with his Costa Rican counterpart, the Hungarian Foreign Minister submitted a letter in which Hungary asks to join the Freedom Online Coalition, the current President of which happens to be Costa Rica. The FOC is an international organisation comprising twenty-nine countries, including 11 Member States of the European Union, working to assure the freedom of the Internet.
In addition, an agreement was also reached on the fact that Hungary will be supporting Costa Rica’s accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Costa Rica will in turn back Hungary’s nomination to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Since Costa Rica in a certain sense has a similar problem with migrants as Hungary has – many Cuban and African migrants pass through the country on their way north – his negotiating partners showed heightened interest in Hungarian practices relating to the handling of migration difficulties, Mr. Szijártó told the press.