“The Article 7 proceedings brought against Hungary for political reasons should not be debated during the European Parliament (EP) election campaign, but ‘there is no lack of goodwill’ on the part of Romania, the current President of the Council of the European Union, within this field”, Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Monday following talks with Romanian Minister for EU Affairs George Ciamba in Bucharest.
“The pro-immigration forces, which are in a majority within the EP, have obviously launched the proceedings because of Hungary’s immigration policy”, the Minister underlined. “We hope that at the EP elections in May this parliamentary distribution of power changes fundamentally, and if this happens, then this procedure will not have to be conducted for long either”, Mr. Gulyás said.
He said that in his evaluation the Romanian and Hungarian positions on the issue of immigration are similar, and Romania also thinks that illegal immigration must be stopped, and one of the goals of the Romanian presidency is precisely to join the Schengen Area, with no internal border controls. Romania is ready to be a member of the Schengen Area, and for this reason Hungary does not regard the tying of accession to other conditions as fortuitous, he stated.
According to Mr. Gulyás, there are several extremely important issues that also directly affect Hungary and the agenda during the period of the Romanian presidency, including some with relation to which there are common Hungarian-Romanian interests. Of these, he highlighted the budget for the upcoming EU period. Both Hungary and Romania would like neither cohesion funding nor agricultural funding to be reduced, and for member states to increase their contributions to compensate for the missing budgetary resources caused by Brexit.
“It is also clearly in our common interests to not allow the generation of tensions between Southern and Central Europe that would make the adoption of the new budget more difficult, and accordingly we believe that the (budget) proposal put forward is in no way suitable to enable us to accept it now, but the issue of which are the most important questions to be decided is extremely significant, and these questions must be determined during the Romanian presidency”, Mr. Gulyás explained.
The Minister told the press that while in Bucharest he had also met with President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) Hunor Kelemen, with whom he discussed, amongst others, preparations for the EP elections.
“We hope that there can be a strong RMDSZ representation within the EP. This would reinforce both Hungarian representation and the People’s Party group”, Mr. Gulyás said. During the meeting, the RMDSZ president also reported on current issues affecting the Hungarian community in Romania, including the problems surrounding Hungarian medical education in Târgu Mureș (Marosvásárhely).
“We hope that Romanian politics will be strong enough to solve these issues without wanting to repress national minorities, and while ensuring that they can truly practice the rights that they have enjoyed thus far, or which are guaranteed the by law, in future”, Mr. Gulyás said.
“To Hungary, a key issue that is regarded as the fundamental prerequisite to good neighbourly relations will always be the level at which the Hungarian community in Romania is able to use its native language and study in its native language, and the conditions that exist to enable them to live as Hungarians in the land of their birth”, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office pointed out.