“With this year-long mission, the Visegrad Four countries are clearly demonstrating their solidarity with the Baltic states,” the minister said, adding that the military staffs of the countries involved will begin laying out the plans for the missions and submit them to their respective defence ministries.

The mission’s details must be finalised by the July NATO summit in Warsaw, he said. On the topic of NATO enlargement, Szijjártó said all countries at the meeting were in agreement that the process must continue. He said Hungary’s stance on the matter is that enlargement is crucial for the alliance’s credibility.

Failure on NATO’s part to indicate to Georgia and Macedonia that it is ready to discuss their accession could destabilise those countries, which would also hurt Europe’s security, he said, stressing that Hungary supports the EU offering visa liberalisation to Georgia and Ukraine. Regarding the EU’s sanctions against Russia, he said views at the meeting on the issue had been “mixed”.

There was “a great deal of hypocrisy” surrounding the matter, he insisted. He noted that Europe’s biggest energy companies were working closely together with Russia’s Gazprom on the Nord Stream pipeline while French President François Hollande had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit him in France. “We need an open and thorough debate” on the sanctions against Russia, Szijjártó said, adding that Hungary in no way supports their automatic extension.

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MTI photo: KKM