Orbán: Western Balkans people ‘deserve more’ than what they receive from Brussels

The position of Hungary which currently fulfils the EU rotating presidency is well known: the stability of the entire Western Balkans region, and its integration in the EU, is not only in Hungary’s interests but it is a vested interest of the entire EU, Orbán said.

Enlargement is not a problem or a challenge but a great opportunity for EU members, he said. The EU has lost its dynamism for economic development and enlargement is an obvious means to regain it, he added.

Hungary is not glad to see that purely out of geopolitical reasons Ukraine and Moldova have received a “fast-track” approach, and a merit-based approach has been pushed to the back, he added.

Orbán said it was undeserved and unjust that countries having worked on EU accession based on their merits have been pushed to the back.

It is a priority for the Hungarian presidency that the EU integration of the Western Balkans stays on the agenda, he added.

Orbán said that in order to ensure this, he was proposing an intergovernmental conference to open chapters or failing that a political intergovernmental conference.

Orbán also noted that North Macedonia had received EU candidacy together with Croatia in 2005. “Since then Croatia has become an EU member while accession talks with North Macedonia have not even started,” he said. He added that it was “a historic mistake” by the EU, adding that plans to start accession talks with Albania earlier could even increase that mistake. “There is no moral or political reason” for pushing North Macedonia back, he said.

Orbán noted the partnership between Hungary’s ruling parties and North Macedonia’s VMRO. He said “partisan affairs should never be mixed up with state affairs” but added that “it is always good if two friendly parties are on government” in two countries, and extended an invitation to PM Hristijan Mickoski and his government to Hungary. He also added that the two countries were marking the 30th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations this year.

On the subject of bilateral cooperation, Orbán noted Hungary’s assistance in fighting wildfires in North Macedonia earlier this year. He said the Hungarian assistance had been provided in return from North Macedonia’s helping Hungary “especially with its fight against migration in 2015-2016”.

Should North Macedonia fail to protect its borders, “we will have to fight along the Serbia-Hungary border,” he added, and pledged “all necessary assistance” to North Macedonia with its efforts. He also noted that some 2,400 Hungarian police officers had patrolled North Macedonia’s borders and prevented 17,000 illegal entry attempts.

Orbán added that Hungary was ready for financial cooperation with North Macedonia and viewed the credit extended to the country, if Skopje needs it, “as a kind of investment in Hungary’s security”.

Answering a question, Orbán warned that “migration is a phenomenon that will stay with us in the next decades” and added that “there is some deep demographic restructuring underlying migration.” The prime minister argued that “the demographic potential” of the northern Mediterranean was “far below that of the southern side”. Migration is rooted in that imbalance, he said, and warned that an expected demographic boom in Africa should also be considered. “Unless we assist countries in the Sahel region, hundreds of millions will reach the Mediterranean,” he said, adding that cooperation over migratory issues should be planned “for not just one or two but forty or fifty years.” He insisted that strategic partnerships should be built with peoples of the Western Balkans to fight illegal migration “from Greece up to Serbia and Hungary.” He also warned that “migration could stab us in the back from Western Europe” because western countries “fail to protect their borders”. “If we want to preserve our nations, cultural identity including Christianity, we must protect ourselves and find countries that could be partners such as North Macedonia and Serbia,” Orbán said.

In response to a question, Orbán said Europe was “in a state of hypocrisy” concerning the issue of migration. In the West, they have placed a wager on Willkommenskultur, they believe they would benefit from migration, and so instead of preventing it, they want to manage it, he said.

“We have always had our doubts about it,” despite some larger countries choosing that path, he added. “The bitter fruits of this choice are now ripening and they should change their policy but it is not easy,” he added.

Orbán said western countries were currently in the phase of “changing tracks .. but I have never had any doubts that they would sooner or later arrive in our street where we would be waiting for them”.

In response to a question on North Macedonia-Bulgaria relations, he said the most important next step for North Macedonia’s accession was to reach an agreement with Bulgaria. He said Hungary had a proposal on the issue and it was ready to talk about it also with Bulgaria if the sides so wanted.

Orbán said it was a mistake that North Macedonia was still not an EU member and that it had been separated from the talks to be started with another candidate country. The way to correct this mistake would be to start talks also with North Macedonia before the end of this year, he said.

Answering another question, he said Hungary wasn’t providing Chinese credit to North Macedonia, as that was earmarked for specific Hungarian developments. “We can’t provide Chinese money, but we are providing European money,” he added.

In response to a question concerning the US elections, he said “already in 2015-16 we were supporters of President Trump”. There is a rule in Hungary under which “we interfere in other countries election campaign only to the extent that they interfere in ours,” he said. “This opens up great opportunities for us in the case of America,” he added.

He said the US played a key role for world peace, and “if there is a pro-peace president, then there is peace in the world but if there is a pro-war or weak president then there is mess and war”.

“Donald Trump has been president before and during his time the world was a safer place,” he said. “We need peace and a president who brings peace,” he added.