Close EU-British cooperation must be formed even after the departure of Britain from the EU, and bilateral relations, too, must be further developed, Szabolcs Takács, the State Secretary responsible for EU affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office said in Luxembourg, upon speaking to Hungarian journalists by telephone after the meeting of the ministers of EU Member States responsible for European affairs.
Mr Takács underlined: we must draw the conclusions as to why such a large proportion of Britain’s population took the view that they would be better off outside the EU. We must start a profound, joint assessment in order to understand what the main problem of the British people was, he said.
He informed the press that the British minister responsible for EU affairs attending the meeting described immigration as the number one problem. In this context, British electors were of the opinion that they did not receive reassuring and convincing answers which also took their views into consideration.
Discussing and working out the details of „where to go from here” will be the duty of the summit of heads of state and government scheduled to take place in Brussels next week, he said. In reference to the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron, he added: it will be reasonable to negotiate the terms of Britain’s exit once there is a British government with a strong, legitimate authorisation in place to negotiate with its partners from the European Union.
Mr Takács further reported that the countries of origin and transit countries affected by migration should be treated as a particular priority, as underlined by the Hungarian party at the migration debate of the Friday meeting. We must come to an agreement with them in order to set up asylum-seeker registration centres, so-called hot spots operated by the EU, in their territories, so that a decision can be made already there as to who is eligible to enter the territory of the European Union.
The European Union is able to cooperate with them in the fields of trade, investment, visa and development policy if they, too, help with resolving the migration crisis, the State Secretary stressed.
Mr Takács highlighted: we should not concentrate on how to handle, but rather on how to stop migration.