Hungarian foreign minister held talks in Romania

Good Hungary-Romania relations clearly serve the interests of Hungarians and ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday after meeting counterpart Teodor Melescanu in Bucharest.

“Both Hungary and Romania have done much towards fulfilling this purpose in recent times,” the minister said.

Progress has been made in such sensitive areas as relaunching the Catholic secondary school in Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely), the amendment of the education law and regulations on textbooks, Szijjártó told MTI.

“We greatly appreciate the Romanian government fulfilling its promise to relaunch the Catholic lyceum of Marosvásárhely so that Hungarian children in Marosvásárhely can again study in a Catholic Hungarian school from September,” he said. Regulations linked to the amendment of the Romanian educaton law have been brought into line with the recommendations of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ), he noted. Also, the regulations on textbooks have been amended in Romania in a way that allows Hungarian teachers to prepare textbooks for Hungarian children, he said.

“All these changes point in a positive direction from the point of ethnic minorities in Romania, Transylvania and Szeklerland,” Szijjártó added.

These achievements contribute to a strategy of rebuilding trust between the two countries that will help resolve difficult issues, he added.

Concerning additional areas discussed with his counterpart, Szijjártó said it was important for the two countries to develop closer energy cooperation in the upcoming period. Infrastructure developments in Hungary and Romania will make it physically possible to transport 1.75 billion cubic metres of natural gas in Hungary’s direction annually from next year and 4.4 billion cubic metres from 2022, he said.

“We hope that American and Austrian-Romanian gas industry companies will make decisions regarding the exploration of Blak Sea gas resources as soon as possible, so we can sign the necessary contracts. We are making every effort to buy gas from Romania in the long term and the physical infrastructure for this will be in place from next year,” he added.

He said he and Melescanu had agreed to keep the border crossings at Dombegyháza and Elek permanently open in order to improve the lives of local communities. Currently, they are opened once a week.