The foreign minister said the Visegrad Group stands for peace and stopping the war in Ukraine as soon as possible to ensure security in central Europe.
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, spoke ahead of a summit between the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. The region is bearing the brunt of the humanitarian burden of the war, he noted. Poland, Slovakia and Hungary have already received “a great many” refugees, some of whom have travelled on to the Czech Republic, among other countries, he said.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has yet to end, as “many countries are still battling that challenge and lack the requisite vaccines”, Minister Szijjártó said. Hungary is donating another 100,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to Thailand to help raise the vaccination rate. With that shipment, Hungary’s vaccine donations to Thailand will have reached 500,000, he said. In total, Hungary has so far donated 4.2 million doses to 17 countries, he said. “Raising the vaccination rate worldwide will curb the risk of new variants, so we can leave at least that challenge behind us. Security challenges are plenty without a health-care and economic crisis before us, too,” he said.
Photo credit: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter