News - Hungary FM speaks positively about Armenia's possible joining Black Sea electric cable project

Peter Szijjarto, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, has spoken positively about the possibility of Armenia joining the Black Sea electric cable project. Szijjarto expressed his respective view at the press conference held in Yerevan Friday. "As for the cooperation between the EU and Armenia, we [Hungary] are a country that is interested in the enlargement of the EU, and the development of foreign relations has always been supported by us. Now that the EU's competitiveness is declining, we believe that external partnerships are even more important. The more countries the EU can help, the better, the greater the chance of stopping the tragic decline in EU competitiveness. Therefore, the [EU] Eastern Neighborhood Policy, in which both you [Armenia] and Azerbaijan are interested, we have contributed to it, we want the EU to invest as much as possible in this project, and we expect that the project will help your development and strengthen your ties with the EU. "Regarding the energy program you mentioned, I told Mr. [Foreign] Minister [of Armenia] that partnership relations not only here in the Caucasus, but also in Central Europe are quite complicated, and we have not always had excellent relations with our neighbors. Then we chose the following strategy: we tried to achieve practical success—build bridges, open checkpoints, investments, energy connections, power lines, [natural] gas pipelines. All this laid the foundation for the formation of trust, on the basis of which it became possible to discuss more complex issues. Therefore, I really hope that if a peace treaty is concluded between you and Azerbaijan as soon as possible, one of its results will be that in practical matters solutions can be found quite quickly and easily, and as a result, closer cooperation. Energy cooperation will be more successful with as many participants as possible. We consider this as well one of the guarantors of Europe's security," said the FM of Hungary.