Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that during its European Union presidency starting on July 1, Hungary will open new chapters in accession negotiations with Serbia and hold inter-governmental talks with all five Western Balkans membership candidates as part of its bid to speed up EU enlargement in the region.
Speaking at a conference of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Minister Szijjártó said Hungary also planned to close at least seven chapters with Montenegro, open the first ones with Albania and adopt the negotiation framework with Bosnia-Herzegovina, a first step to opening the first chapter of talks. Hungary will also strive to start “substantive talks with the new, strongly pro-integration government of North Macedonia,” he added. The integration of those countries “is in the economic as well as political and security interest of Hungary”, he said. Hungarian investments in the region have reached 2.5 billion euros and trade has grown four-fold since 2010, to over 7 billion euros, he said. Hungary is also aiding the process by sending experts and training officials to navigate “the complicated accession process”, he said. Szijjártó said central Europe and the Western Balkans could be a “bridge” between East and West, much needed “for a return to East-West cooperation based on mutual respect, which could show the way out of the current turbulent era riddled with crises.” Hungary is ready to take on that role and to support Western Balkans states in acting similarly, he added.
The foreign minister added that integrating Western Balkan countries is a vital economic interest as well as a political and security need, and the European Union’s track record in this respect “is shameful and unacceptable”. The minister said that Hungary valued highly the OECD’s activities in the Western Balkans which had aided the region’s stability, peace and development. In the course of Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency, the government therefore wants to tighten cooperation between the EU and the OECD, he added. Western Balkan states, he said, had been waiting for more than 15 years on average to join the bloc. Unless the integration process was speeded up, the credibility of the entire enlargement policy “will be at risk”, he said. Szijjártó called for accession standards to be based on merit, adding that this should apply to “everyone”. “Double standards are unacceptable,” he added. Arguing that the bloc’s competitiveness was in decline, he said the Western Balkans could add fresh impetus and dynamism to the bloc, and the EU now needed the Western Balkans more than the other way around, but the latter would not wait indefinitely. Meanwhile, Szijjártó lamented that free trade and global economic cooperation were being replaced by “uncoupling and de-risking”. The minister hailed the OECD for being “the last international organisation that has managed to avoid politicisation”, adding that the organisation was undergirded by “common sense and professionalism”.