The Minister held a meeting with his Estonian counterpart Urmas Reinsalu, following which at a joint press conference, he declared: “Estonia is one of Hungary’s close allies, and not only because both countries are members of NATO and the EU, and because they are linked by their common Finno-Ugric heritage, but also because they share a common position concerning dilemmas that are important with relation to the future of the world and the EU”. “We agree that the UN Global Compact for Migration is a dangerous document, and we do not regard it as compulsory with relation to our countries because the issue of migration falls within the sphere of competence of national sovereignty”, he explained. “We also agree on the importance of protecting our borders”, he added.
“There is continuous professional and political cooperation between the two countries with relation to the fact that the UN is attempting to push through the Global Compact for Migration ‘in a stealthy manner’, having failed to get is adopted all in one”, Mr. Szijjártó stated. “Together with other countries, Hungary and Estonia are taking joint action, are operating an early warning system and are monitoring submitted documents, and if the Global Compact for Migration is cited or an attempt is made to turn it into an international legal reference, then we are preventing the package from being made compulsory”, he explained. He also spoke about the fact that according to the basic premise of the global compact, every country is a source, transit or target country of migration. “But this is not true, because there exists a fourth category: countries that want to be neither. Hungary is one such country; we want to decide for ourselves to whom we allow entry and who we want to coexist with”, he declared. Mr. Szijjártó said that in his view there follows an important period from this perspective, because migration pressure is increasing in the Balkans, the agreement between the EU and Turkey is facing challenges, and in winter migration routes are shifting to dry land.
“Hungary and Estonia also agree with relation to the importance of families, and in our opinion demographic challenges should not be handled via migration, but through supporting families”, the Foreign Minister also said. “We also agree on the importance of protecting Christian communities”, he added. “EU enlargement is important, and accordingly we are disappointed by the slowness of the process and are cooperating to accelerate it”, Mr. Szijjártó told the press. “Security policy cooperation between the two countries is also close, which is also important in view of the fact that Estonia will be a member of the UN Security Council from 2020. This year, Hungary is participating in the defence of Estonian air space for a period of four months”, he stated.
Urmas Reinsalu highlighted: “There are no open issues in our bilateral relations, the two countries share a similar approach to international issues”. “We agree on the importance of the sovereignty of nation states with relation to handling migration”, he stated. “There is no alternative to effective border protection with relation to this issue”, he added. The Estonian Foreign Minister thanked Hungary for its contribution to maintaining the country’s security.
