Hungarian Foreign Policy Is Unheard Of

Created: 16th January, 2008 14:56	print	send

"Hungarian foreign policy is unheard of and unimaginative", stated Mr Németh, following the press-conference held by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Kinga Göncz. The MP of Fidesz said he believed the cause of the current situation was that the incumbent Gyurcsány-government used diplomacy as a means to compensate for the troubles with its unstable legitimacy, resulting in "a flip-flop" diplomacy.

The government and its opposition have reached consensus on a number of issues, though, such as foreign military assignments, the Treaty of Lisbon and the planned airbase in the city of Pápa, but there could be more cooperation had the cabinet really taken policy dialogue seriously, said Mr Németh.

With respect to Kosovo, the opposition MP said that the parties' positions have been converging after the fortunate understanding of Ms Göncz that the China-Taiwan model was inapplicable for the relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Upon answering a question, Mr Németh said that if the Slovakian cabinet succeeded in dividing Hungarian politics and the two Prime Ministers were to meet, then that would mean further difficulties for ethnic Hungarians in Southern Slovakia.

The chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs said Fidesz was absolutely opposed to the government's foreign policy towards Russia, considering it inexplicable that the PM now supported the "reloaded" version of Blue Stream, the Southern Stream, a doubtful construction that could possibly endanger the common European security policy.

With respect to the statement regarding visa-free entry for ethnic Hungarians in Voivodina (Vajdaság, Republic of Serbia), Mr Németh said that the only possible solution to maintain regular contact with them was granting dual citizenship [a referendum was held in this matter in December, 2004, but mainly due to the negative campaign of the socialist-liberal government led by PM Ferenc Gyurcsány, a majority of the people rejected the idea]. "The PM is the last person opposing this solution, whereas both Serbians and ethnic Hungarians, public opinion, the opposition and socialists like Katalin Szili [speaker of the House] and Vilmos Szabó are in favor of this solution."

Mr Gyurcsány is making dual citizenship his personal issue, harming hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hungarians in Serbia, concluded Mr Németh.