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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Hungary and Poland ‘won’t be blackmailed’ over EU funds

Poland and Hungary will “do what it takes” to stop any potential blackmail when it comes to accessing European Union funding, Hungary’s foreign minister said after talks with his Polish counterpart, in Warsaw. “In times of the pandemic, the V4 cooperation is more important than ever before,” the Polish foreign minister stressed.

The two ministers underlined their respective standpoints that both countries are entitled to those funds because “Poles and Hungarians contribute to the EU’s economic output,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungary’s state news agency (MTI), adding that “the EU’s funds are a common asset”.

Attempts to “blackmail” Hungary and Poland to give up their migration policy or other policies “are unacceptable”, he added.

 Mr Szijjarto and Mr Rau also agreed to reject the European Commission’s new migration pact. The package “advocates the same principle along with the same mistakes that the [European] commission pushed in the past five years,” the Hungarian foreign minister said.

The proposed pact “still includes a migration quota, even if it makes a strained grammatical attempt to describe it in a different way” FM Szijjarto said, adding that there is no use describing the quota as a “return sponsorship”, when it is still a compulsory settlement quota.

Regarding the Belarus situation, the two ministers agreed that Hungary will provide assistance to Poland after several accredited Polish diplomats, including the ambassador, were forced to leave the country. Based on the inter-ministerial agreement, Hungary will undertake Poland’s representation regarding visas – and will issue visas on behalf of Poland – until its representation in Minsk is restored.

 The top diplomats also agreed to carry on with the two countries’ pro-Christian policies. Preparations will be made in the next one or two months to send, by the end of the year, supplies of medical equipment to Christian hospitals in Jordan that cater to patients from Syria, Mr Szijjarto added.

 “In times of the pandemic, the V4 cooperation is more important than ever before,” FM Rau said, after meeting FM Peter Szijjarto.

Mr Rau invited his Hungarian counterpart to participate in an international conference dubbed Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom that Poland will organise in November 2020. The Hungarian foreign minister accepted the invitation.

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