Hungary’s Foreign Minister: Eastern Ukraine Crisis Worsens
- 22 Aug 2014 9:00 AM
The crisis in eastern Ukraine has deepened and is not moving towards stabilisation, Foreign Minister Tibor Navracsics said on Thursday. Addressing parliamentary committees, he outlined goals Hungary had as regards the crisis: a peaceful settlement and stabilisation, to see Ukraine emerge from the crisis as a democratic, independent state with territorial integrity and respect for minority rights, and protecting the needs of the Transcarpathian Hungarian minority.
He said it was crucial that the rights of Hungarians in Transcarpathia should not be curtailed nor their livelihoods jeopardised.
After the Malaysian flight was downed US and European peace efforts were strengthened and sanctions against Russia expanded, the minister said.
Moscow’s “heavy, unilateral boycott” impacting farm products has hit eastern and southern European economies hard, including Hungary’s farm sector, which suffered losses of an estimated daily 70 million forints (EUR 223,000).
Hungary has indicated its need for compensation to the EU, he added. Ukraine’s reinstatement of a conscription does not mean a declaration of war, and Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin has promised that the conscription would not affect ethnic Hungarians disproportionately, he said.
Source www.hungarymatters.hu
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