Szijjártó: Europe faces most severe security challenge since WW2

Bratislava, April 15 (MTI) – Europe is facing the most severe security challenges since WW2 and the response to them must be uniform and resolute, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday.

Szijjártó addressed the Globsec 2016 conference in Bratislava, the most significant foreign affairs and security policy conference in central Europe.

The European Union’s responses to handling the migrants crisis have clearly failed because they were based on the principle of setting quotas, Szijjártó told MTI.

“Everybody is aware by now that this is fully doomed to fail,” he said.

“The European Commission seems to be alone in wanting to maintain this approach and their new plan is based on the same idea. We reject this because the quota goes against common sense,” he said.

Instead of thinking about quotas, plans should be made about protecting external borders and the Visegrad Four countries “which pursue the politics of common sense” must make this clear to the whole of Europe, he added.

Szijjártó held seven bilateral consultations focusing on illegal migration, energy security and the upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw.

Szijjártó and his Visegrad counterparts agreed that the V4 group should demonstrate its solidarity with Europe. To this effect, the four nations will dispatch a company-strong military force to the Baltic region with each mission lasting for three months.

Concerning energy security, Szijjártó called the problem of unilateral energy dependence more prevalent in central Europe than in western Europe, a situation that he attributed to a lag in completing the north-west energy infrastructure.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters