“Hungary is only prepared to support an EU agreement with the countries of Africa that concerns the funding of effective repatriation policies and facilitates the region’s population retention capacity”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Brussels on Monday.

Following a meeting of the council of foreign ministers of EU member states to discuss international development issues, Mr. Szijjártó said the meeting proves that the pro-immigration forces have again gathered momentum in several areas in Europe.

“During the renegotiation of the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Ocean states, which the EU would like to extent beyond 2020, it can be clearly felt that the African party and several EU member states, together with the European Commission, wants to supplement the treaty with elements that support and inspire migration and highlight its positive effects”, he stated.

“According to Hungary, what we should be supporting is that the increasingly dynamically expanding African population is able to make a living at home and their only alternative is not to set out towards Europe”, the Minister underlined. “Hungary is not prepared to support the document if it includes any refence at all to the global compacts for migration or on refugees, the stealthy pushing through into international law of which is continuing to occur. Hungary will not allow this, and its closest ally in Europe in this regard is Poland”, he declared.

“Hungary believes that assistance must be taken to where the trouble is, and accordingly has already provided over 7 billion forints (EUR 20.9 million) this year towards African job creation and the development of water and hygiene services”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade underlined. “Hungary has increased its funding for Southeast Asia to over ten billion forints (EUR 29.9 million), and is running an 8 billion forint (EUR 23.9 million) programme in the Middle East in the interests of enabling the realisation of development projects in the aforementioned regions that enable the locals to remain in place and make that an attractive alternative for them”, he added.

He also highlighted that the migration situation is becoming increasingly serious in the Western Balkans, in view of the fact that the number of illegal border crossers in Turkey this year exceeded 400 thousand by mid-November, which is 128 thousand more than during the whole of last year. “In addition, the arrival of 27 thousand illegal immigrants has also been registers in Serbia, which is double the last year’s figure”, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted.