The foreign minister said Hungary has reached an agreement with Morocco on the mutual recognition of each other’s Covid-19 immunity certificates.
Following talks with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita in Rabat, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that from today, Hungarian and Moroccan citizens who have been inoculated against Covid-19 will no longer be required to stay in isolation or present negative test results when entering each other’s countries.
The minister noted that some 26,000 Hungarians had visited Morocco in the year before the pandemic. Minister Szijjártó said that like Hungary in Europe, Morocco was leading the Covid vaccination drive in Africa. The reason for this, he said, was that neither country had approached the issue of vaccines from an ideological or geopolitical perspective and both had purchased both Western and Eastern jabs. Both countries’ governments view vaccines as means for saving lives, he added.
Minister Szijjártó said the two countries also consider it important to learn the right lessons from the pandemic and establish the conditions for strategic sovereignty, adding that this meant being in a position to produce protective equipment, including vaccines. Minister Szijjártó said the pandemic posed serious economic, health and security challenges for the entire world, adding that this made cooperation between the European Union and Africa even more important.
The minister said North Africa played a crucial role when it came to the EU’s security. If the North African region is unstable and not peaceful, it cannot function as Europe’s “line of defense” against migration waves. Minister Szijjártó underlined the need for the EU to strengthen its cooperation with its southern neighbors on the basis of mutual respect. Morocco, he added, was crucial to North Africa’s strength.