Currently, Hungary classifies Ukraine as a country with an increased security risk, but travel is only not recommended to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.Continue reading
The defense and law enforcement committees of the parliaments of the Visegrad Group have expressed support for an undivided NATO and European Union, Lajos Kósa, the head of the Hungarian committee, said after a meeting of his V4 counterparts in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, on Friday.
The closed-door meeting, also attended by Slovenia, as an observer, focused on strategic and long-term cooperation issues as well as topical subjects such as the situation in Ukraine, Kósa told a press conference.
The participants issued a joint statement concerning the draft migration and refugee pact of the EU, as well as on defense cooperation between the Visegrad countries.
In their statements, the committee heads warned that a further increase in tension around Ukraine could trigger a wave of mass migration and create a situation similar to the Belarusian migration crisis, and called for a complex approach. It is crucial to create a European-level migration and refugee system that could “cope with the challenges, the migration pressure on the external borders of the EU, as well as with the hybrid attacks that use migration as a tool”, the statement said.
In their statement, the signatories also called on the EU to “avoid any measures triggering migration”. Participants in the meeting also expressed support for the Hungarian V4 presidency’s efforts to further cooperation “in a V4+” format in view of shared security threats and challenges, Kósa said.
In the featured photo, Lajos kósa (centre-right), the head of the Hungarian defense and law enforcement committee, speaks at the meeting of V4 defense committees in Debrecen. Next to him Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi (centre-left), commander of the Hungarian military, Mátyás Hegyaljai (left), the Interior Ministry’s deputy secretary for European Union and international affairs, and Miklós Simon (right), Fidesz Vice President of the National Assembly’s defense and law enforcement committee. Featured photo by Zsolt Czeglédi/MTI.