“The V4 represents the rational standpoint with regard to the immigration crisis; the countries of the Visegrád Group want to put an end to mindless politics, hypocrisy and the defencelessness of Europe”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest on Thursday following a meeting with his Slovakian counterpart.
EU institutions are practicing mindless politics that is maintaining the defencelessness of the European Union. This is something the V4 do not want and the countries of the Visegrád Group are not just talking about the importance of protecting Europe’s external borders but are also acting to protect them, the Minister highlighted.
This is a difficult period in which certain EU institutions are attempting to abuse their powers; “they are pushing through changes that would redraw Europe’s future and the cultural and religious map of Europe despite the will of the European people”, he explained.
But at the same time, the V4 has gained strength and has never been as powerful and effective as it is now, he said. This cooperation has become an irrevocably strong factor in European and global politics, Mr. Szijjártó said. What the V4 thinks about an issue matters, because if this were not so then it wouldn’t have to face continuous criticism, he said, adding that for this reason the Group viewed criticism as a show of respect.
The Hungarian Foreign Minister also stated that he and his Slovakian counterpart had agreed that quotas cannot provide a solution to the migration crisis and are an irrational and unenforceable measure that seriously contravene and disregard European regulations, and so the procedures launched at the European Court of Justice would be seen through to their conclusion.
On the subject of Hungarian-Slovakian relations, Mr. Szijjártó said that cooperation between the two countries is characterised by strategic partnership and strong economic relations. They fight side by side in tight cooperation on various issues, which is something that could not have been said a few years ago. There remain a few open issues, but these are being debated in an intelligent manner, he added.
Bilateral trade volume between the two countries increased by 7 percent over the first 11 months of last years, Eximbank is facilitating cooperation between Hungarian and Slovakian enterprises by providing a credit line of 500 million euros, in addition to which Hungary has opened five trading houses in Slovakia. Furthermore, five new border crossing points have been opened in recent months along the Hungarian-Slovakian border, and more will be opened in future, Mr. Szijjártó said, listing recent advances in economic relations. It is also important that there should be a direct motorway connection between Miskolc and Kosice, and between Győr and Bratislava, he added.
Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčak stressed that Europe cannot stick to the quotas obsessively because they do not provide a solution to the crisis, which would better be solved by the consistent application of Schengen Regulations. The quotas do not take into account the varying integration capacities of individual countries or whether migrants could eventually become part of a country’s economy or wold have to be maintained by the country in question, and these are issues that only individual governments can decide, he stated.
The majority of immigrants are economic migrants and not refugees, and if regulations had been adhered to properly we would now only have to solve the situation of a quarter of a million people and not one million people, Mr. Lajčak said. The Slovakian Foreign Minister called for the establishment of a joint European border protection system in the eventuality that certain countries are capable of doing so from their own resources. We don’t need new regulations; all we need is for the existing regulations to be respected” he emphasised.
Mr. Lajčak added that in his view there is no viable European strategy on the issue and so certain countries should not be condemned for trying to find individual solutions.
According to the Slovakian Foreign Minister, the relationship between Hungary and Slovakia has never been better, dialogue between them is dynamic, cooperation intensive, there are no taboo topics and everything is a subject of debate. The two countries represent joint standpoints on several bilateral and international issues, he added.
With relation to the North Stream 2 project, he noted that the project was harmful from a political perspective and illogical from an economic perspective, and it is a good thing that the two countries are harmonising their standpoints on the issue.