Foreign minister calls for start to EU accession talks with Albania

The European Union should begin accession talks with Albania as soon as possible, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with his Albanian counterpart in Tirana on Friday.

Albania plays an important role in guaranteeing the security of the Western Balkan region, the minister told a joint press conference with Olta Xhacka. Meanwhile, developments in the region have an impact on progress in central Europe and the amount of migration pressure on the continent as a whole, he added.

“It is in Hungary’s national security and economic interest that things should go well in the Western Balkans and we are therefore dedicated to the European and Euro-Atlantic integration of the region,” he said. He added that it was regrettable that talks had not properly started in the past four years.

Hungary is asking countries “less sensitive to enlargement” and Brussels to start the relevant talks, he said.

Hungary is also supporting Albania’s membership in the United Nations Security Council in 2022-23, he added.

Szijjártó said the EU should work closely with the countries of the region in order to avoid being “flooded by illegal migrants again”, adding that migration now also posed health risks to the continent due to the pandemic. The pressure of migration is again on the rise in the Western Balkans, with 13 percent more illegal migrants arriving at Albania’s borders last year than in the previous year, he added.