Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Friday that Hungary is committed to its support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s European Union accession, adding that there were Hungarian experts aiding the process.
Hungary also promotes economic growth in the region, the foreign minister said at a joint press conference with Staša Košarac, Bosnia’s minister for foreign trade, noting that the government has launched an economic development program in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic. Fully 768 local farmers and businesses have been supported with a total of 11 million euros through the scheme, which they could use to buy Hungarian agricultural machinery, Minister Szijjártó added. An agreement has been reached on the launch of another round of support worth a total of 17 million euros in early June, he said. Minister Szijjártó welcomed that bilateral trade turnover reached a record 600 million euros last year. The involvement of Hungarian businesses in the installation of solar farms in Bosnia and Herzegovina will be important to boosting trade, he added. Meanwhile, Minister Szijjártó said both Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina were interested in the war in Ukraine ending as soon as possible. Both countries see energy security as a priority, and the TurkStream gas pipeline is key for both of them, Minister Szijjártó said. He said that to guarantee the region’s energy supply, the EU could no longer afford to be “passive” when it came to the capacity expansion and upgrade of southeast Europe’s energy infrastructure.