Hungary would like to share with the countries of the Western Balkans region all the knowledge which Budapest gained during the course of its accession to the European Union and NATO, Szabolcs Takács, Minister of State for EU Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office stressed at a conference held in Podgorica which the Government of Montenegro organised on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the signing of the stabilisation and association agreement.
After the conference, the Minister of State told the Hungarian news agency MTI: the Hungarian Government has always treated the European integration of the countries of the Western Balkans as a particular foreign policy priority. He added that Hungary seeks to provide all the necessary assistance for every country, but this does not mean that it believes that the enlargement process should take place „package” style. In his view, it would convey a very negative message to the countries awaiting accession if a given Member State – which adopts better political, economic and social decisions in the interest of its swifter accession – had to wait for the others to catch up.
He reiterated that Hungary, too, had problems of this nature at the time, and perhaps it would have been better if back in 2004 ten States had not joined at once. „We would like the countries making swifter progress with the closing of the accession talks to be allowed to move on to the next level, and to become full members of the EU sooner”, the Minister of State stressed. We would like to avoid the situation where some countries may feel that while they meet certain important conditions, they do not receive messages of encouragement at the same time, he added.
Montenegro signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union on 15 October 2007, and the accession talks began in June 2012. Since then 28 negotiation chapters out of 35 have been opened between Montenegro and the European Union, and three have been closed on a temporary basis.
Mr Takács highlighted: Hungary is pleased to observe that there appears to have been a change of direction in recent weeks among leaders of the EU in regard to the issue of enlargement. On the one hand, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission spoke about the Western Balkans enlargement as a realistic goal in his annual speech on the state of the EU, and designated 2025 as the date for the accession of Montenegro and Serbia. On the other hand, French President Emmanuel Macron – whom many expect, according to the Minister of State, to be a leading politician in the process of EU integration – also spoke about enlargement in a positive tone. Mr Takács pledged that Hungary will seek to ensure that Montenegro should receive messages of encouragement from Brussels during the period to come, rather than messages of discouragement.
Tangible assistance has been sent to Podgorica by the Hungarian Government in recent years, the Minister of State for EU Affairs underlined. As he said, assistance was given, on the one hand, in the area of EU accession as experts helped the work of the Government of Montenegro in a number of areas, and on the other hand, for two and a half years the Hungarian Embassy in Podgorica served in the function of NATO liaison embassy. Mr Takács added: the fact that Montenegro joined the Western military bloc in the summer was seen in the Western Balkans country as an enormous foreign policy success.
The politician laid down that Hungary seeks to maintain good relations with all the countries of the region. As part of this policy, Hungarian experts are working closely together with the local governments not only in Montenegro, but in every country of the region, including Sarajevo, Skopje, Belgrade and Tirana.
On the occasion of the conference, Minister of State for EU Affairs Szabolcs Takács met with the head of the newly established Ministry for European Integration of Montenegro, Aleksandar Andrija Pejovic, with whom he did not only talk about the EU negotiation process, but the parties also evaluated the internal political situation in Montenegro, the economic cooperation of the two countries, the regional situation, the European Union’s vision of the future, and how the Visegrád countries see the EU’s future.