FM Szijjártó: Africa crucial for Europe

Europe needs to make use of African energy sources in order to overcome its energy crisis, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Tangier on Wednesday, adding that this required infrastructure developments.

Hungary is urging the European Union to consider Africa a partner with whom cooperation is the interest of not just Africans but also Europeans, Szijjártó said at a panel discussion at the international MEDays Forum, according to a ministry statement.

Hungary will be “very active” in its support for African infrastructure developments in Brussels, the minister said.

Szijjártó said the construction of the planned EastMed gas pipeline would be crucial not just to Africa, but Europe as well, arguing that energy cooperation was impossible without infrastructure developments.

Hungarians, he said, believed connectivity and global cooperation were the answer to the challenges faced by the world.

Communication channels should be kept open, he said, underlining the importance of “leaving behind the idea of colonialism”.

He said an absence of physical links could be “destructive” when it came to economic and trade ties.