News from Europe

„We assist Christian communities in the Middle East.” Interview with Peter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade.

Media Servis, a Croatian information agency specialized in producing radio programmes about politics, entertainment and sports mainly,  hosted Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, Mr Peter Szijjártó. He stayed in Croatia on the occasion of the summit of the Central European Initiative.

In the interview, Minister Szíjjártó commented on a wide variety of topics like the bilateral meeting of premiers Andrej Plenković and Viktor Orban, relations between the two countries, and the migration crisis, among others.

Mr Szijjártó called the migration crisis the „most serious challenge the European Union ever had to face”.

Remembering the events in 2015 he said: „400 thousand illegal migrants marched through Hungary’s territory, violating our border, disrespecting our culture, our rules, our regulations, our way of life, threatening people, behaving in a very undisciplined way, attacking our police”.

”We don’t want to see these events repeated in Hungary again. We see pictures on television, hear the news on the radio about the situation at the border between Croatia and the Bosnia and Herzegovina. We respect you for protecting your external border and we think this is a crucial issue” – said the Minister. 

He went on saying that „if Europe is not able to regain the ability to control its borders then Europe will be under an enormous security threat in the future”.

It is precisely for this reason that the Hungarian government wants to „cooperate with all countries in the Western Balkans whether they’re in the EU or not to help them protect their external borders”. Mr Szijjártó called this a key issue.

The minister also mentioned that it was important to help those who suffer in war-torn countries – but not the way the EU would want it:

„Our policy is that we have to make sure that everybody who has to flee or escape from his or her home because of war, for example, should be treated in a proper way in the nearest place to their home. That’s why we’re pushing for more European Union support for Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, even Turkey because these countries are located around war-torn areas. These countries took care of refugees, of people who had to escape from their homes.”

He went on saying that there was no reason why to accept any kind of policies which „help people to cross six, seven, eight peaceful countries violating those borders just because they have the intention to get to Germany”.

„That’s why we have a programme called Hungary helps. With this programme, we bring help to communities to stay close to their home or stay at home and get stronger. We assist Christian communities in the Middle East so they’re able to stay at home because their leaders come to us and ask us not to encourage their people to leave their homes because that way we basically help the terrorist organization that has goals to eliminate these communities” – said the minister.

You can access the full interview here.

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