Bosnia and Herzegovina can count on Hungary, on the Government of Hungary, in the interest of speeding up the process of joining BiH to the European Union (EU), said the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Peter Szijjarto after a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH Elmedin Konaković today in Sarajevo.
The Hungarian minister said that today’s situation, i.e. the challenges brought about by the war conflict in Ukraine, which the entire European continent is facing, and within it Central Europe, shows how much of a mistake it was for the EU not to accelerate expansion into the Western Balkans in recent years.
He pointed out that if the area of the Western Balkans had joined the EU, they would be able to deal with and face difficulties much more effectively.
“The EU would be stronger and we could fight illegal migration more effectively,” Szijjarto said.
According to him, Hungary stopped about 265,000 illegal migrants at its southern borders last year.
“Hungary wants to speed up the EU enlargement process, but you also know very well that there are member states in the EU that only verbally support the EU enlargement, and when it comes to decisions, they are very restrained. That’s why we call on the member states to stop preventing and limiting of the EU enlargement process, because it means a security risk for both the EU and Hungary,” he said.
He added that the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also important for them and that they expect Brussels to take steps in the field of the accession process of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“You yourself see that Brussels sometimes resorts to sanctions for the sake of simplicity, but if we look at how successful sanctions have been in the past decades, I think we can conclude that they did not lead to significant results. The situation is the same now with Brussels sanctions. We absolutely do not agree to the EU introducing any sanctions in relation to the Western Balkans,” he said.
He pointed out that those who believe that any problems can be solved with sanctions do not know what the situation is here and are trying to cover up their ignorance.
“We support dialogue in mutual interest,” he added.
According to him, the economic cooperation between BiH and Hungary has been developed, and the volume of trade last year was more than 600 million euros, which is an increase of 20 percent.
After the meeting, Konaković told journalists that Hungary is a country with which we have no open questions or any major problems, with which the volume of our trade exchange is growing and with which some new opportunities for trade exchange are additionally opening up and strengthening.
“We want to use the opportunity and to make it a focus in each of our conversations,” he added.
“I want to thank my colleague and Hungary for supporting BiH’s candidate status and advocating the EU enlargement. Hungary is one of the countries that understand this because the citizens of Hungary recently went through a similar process and understand how much the EU’s stance, which should be positive towards enlargement, means to us,” stated Minister Konaković.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Peter Szijjarto said that Hungary wants to speed up the EU enlargement process.
photo: Hazim Aljovic/Fena
