Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Bosnia's Serb community can rely on Hungary's continued support as "the two nations depend on each other".
PM Orbán received the Order of Merit of the Republika Srpska from Milorad Dodik, the president of the autonomous Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Banja Luka. PM Orbán said it was an honour to receive the award, “an expression of friendship, trust and mutual optimism for the future”. Speaking of the European Union, he said the bloc „lacks the recognition that it needs Serbs, that there is no European security and stability, and no healthy European Union without Serbs.” He called international politics „unfair and demeaning to Serbs” and said he had always stood up for them in international forums. „While the EU has a lot of problems, there is currently no better international framework for nations to grow stronger,” he said. During its EU presidency starting on July 1, PM Orbán said Hungary would appoint a team dedicated to issues connected to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The decision on Bosnia and Serbia’s integration should have been made long ago; that decision was „pushed to the back seat by the fever dream of an enlargement in the East,” he added.