The world is going through a decidedly dangerous period, with an increasing danger of the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Hungary's foreign minister told a joint press conference after talks with Adea Pirdeni, Albania's minister of state for public administration and anti-corruption. The most dangerous two months of recent years are only just beginning and will last until the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, he added.
The security and economic situation of the European Union has weakened significantly, so new dynamism is needed, he underlined, adding that this new force and freshness could come from the ambitious countries of the Western Balkans that want to join it.
"So speeding up EU enlargement is a real European interest, which fully coincides with Hungary's national interests because peace, freedom and stability in our neighborhood, in the Western Balkans, is in our fundamental interest," he said.
It is a very important objective of our responsible neighborhood policy,
he added.
Peter Szijjarto denounced that the countries of the region have been kept waiting more than fifteen years on average in the accession corridor.
If we cannot provide this opportunity, it will seriously harm the credibility of not only our enlargement policy but the whole of the EU, which should be avoided,
he pointed out. Albania has made spectacular progress during the Hungarian EU presidency recently, with the start of its accession talks on essential matters, he highlighted.
"After the first group of chapters that were opened at the first intergovernmental conference, we are now working to ensure that the EU organizes another intergovernmental conference with Albania still under the Hungarian presidency in December so that we can also open another cluster of negotiating chapters, namely the sixth, on external relations," he said.
In this context, he described the country's progress on the road to integration during Hungary's EU presidency as spectacular.
Real accession talks have started: a new defense and security partnership agreement has been signed between the EU and Albania, and Albania has joined the Single Euro Payments Area,
he said.
Finally, he noted the accession process is very complicated, and experience is worth its weight in gold in this field, so an agreement was signed during the day to train fifty Albanian public administration professionals at the Hungarian Diplomatic Academy in order to ensure that integration can take place as quickly as possible. "We congratulate [...] on this excellent progress made in the integration process in recent months, which shows the whole Western Balkans that there is indeed hope and opportunity for EU accession," he said.
Cover photo: Albanian Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption Adea Pirdeni and Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affair and Trade Peter Szijjarto (Source: Facebook/Peter Szijjarto)
