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The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, emphasized, on Tuesday, that Hungarian investments in Romania should not only limit to the area inhabited by the Hungarian community, but should be extended throughout the country.
Minister Aurescu was on an official visit to Budapest on Tuesday, in which context he also gave a statement to the Romanian-language media in Hungary, Agerpres informs.
"More Romanian investments are needed in Hungary and today I also had a meeting with the representatives of the main Romanian companies that have business in Hungary, to see what we can do together, to increase the level of Romanian investments here. On the other hand, as we also discussed with Prime Minister Orban, it is important that Hungarian investments in Romania should not limit only to the area inhabited by the Hungarian community in Romania, but to go throughout the territory of Romania, because there are very good business opportunities everywhere in Romania", said Bogdan Aurescu, according to the Foreign Ministry (MAE).
During the meeting with the representatives of the Romanian minority, Aurescu presented the results of the discussions with his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, and with Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the priority objectives on the bilateral agenda, with an emphasis on the protection of the rights of persons belonging to the Romanian minority in Hungary.
"I recalled the moment 20 years ago: I participated in the negotiation and signing of the Declaration of Strategic Partnership for Europe of the 21st century and I remember the atmosphere at that moment, an atmosphere that was positive and that evokes the fact that the reconciliation between Romania and Hungary must lead to the construction of a true strategic partnership, for the benefit of Romanian and Hungarian citizens, whatever their ethnic origin," the minister said to the Romanian-language mass media.
According to the MAE, he mentioned the main concerns of the Romanian side: the need to increase the quality of education in the Romanian language, ensuring adequate funding for the Romanian-language mass media, but also for the projects of cultural institutions representative of the ethnic Romanians in Hungary (along with the need for some firm measures on the part of the Hungarian authorities, in order to eliminate the phenomenon of ethno-business that affects the self-governments of the Romanian minority).
"Strictly referring to education, in fact, the main problem that the community has at the moment refers to the insufficient number of teachers who teach in the Romanian language. We believe that it is necessary to find solutions for the training of new teachers to be sent from Romania, as it has already been done - there are already pilot projects in this sense, for teachers to teach in the Romanian language and to find formulas for awarding as many scholarships as possible to encourage Romanian students to learn in the Romanian language in schools with teaching in the Romanian language or with bilingual teaching in Hungary", stated Bogdan Aurescu.
The Romanian official also spoke about "the need to take a very careful, analytical look at the curriculum in the schools taught in the Romanian language in Hungary, so that the number of courses that are taught in the Romanian language increases, so that to allow Romanian students to preserve their Romanian identity as best as possible".
"At the same time, with the concern for ensuring the integration of the Romanian community in the Hungarian society, without them losing their Romanian identity. So the most important thing is to find together the best relationship between the achievement of these two objectives", he added the minister.
He referred to the latest developments related to the activity of the Romanian-Hungarian Specialized Committee for Cooperation in the Field of National Minorities, namely the recent meeting in Bucharest of the co-presidents of this forum, which gave the opportunity to establish the committee's action parameters in the future, with the aim of increasing the efficiency, coherence and predictability of its activity, states the MAE.
The head of Romanian diplomacy also highlighted the "unprecedented" level of development of bilateral trade - 11 billion euros in 2021, increasing this year by more than 32%, according to the cited source.
Approximately 7,700 companies with Romanian capital are active in Hungary, with investments of approximately 280 million euros, "one of the most consistent and diversified Romanian investment presences abroad, says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
