Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Thursday in Bucharest, prior to the informal meeting of the foreign affairs minister of the EU (Gymnich), that the Western Balkans states should be integrated in the European Union at a much faster pace than currently.
When asked if he maintains his point of view in respect to the fact that the states of the Western Balkans should join the EU by 2025, he said that Serbia and Montenegro should deserve to become members of the Union even faster.
"It's very important that the enlargement process continues. We are unsatisfied with the pace at which this enlargement process unfolds, because we believe that the Western Balkans states should be integrated at a much faster pace than is currently the case. We believe that both Serbia and Montenegro should deserve to become members of the EU well before 2025. Usually, we ask the Commission this question: why does it take so long? We believe that the accession process of these states could and should be accelerated, and they should become members of the EU much faster that 2025. It is a matter in the EU's economic and security interest. Unfortunately, for some reasons, the Western-European states and the European Commission don't understand this matter as they should. We, the Central-Europeans, the Romanians, the Hungarians, the Poles, living in the vicinity, we understand it much better. But I believe that this is geography," he mentioned in a press statement.