6 hours agoHungarian Ambassador: Kosovo-Serbia agreement reached as soon as possible
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)Hungary's ambassador to Kosovo, Joseph Bencze, does not prefer to give recommendations to Kosovo politicians, but says it would be good for the final Kosovo-Serbia agreement to be reached as soon as possible. He says the European integration path for Kosovo and Serbia is related precisely to the agreement which needs [...]
The Hungarian ambassador in a year-long interview for Kosova Prees says Hungary is one of the countries supporting Kosovo on the road to European integration.
He says he supports the free movement of Kosovo citizens, as it has met the 95 criteria needed for visa liberalisation.
“We don't like to deliver concrete messages, because first, the primary responsibility is to the people of Kosovo and Kosovo leaders, and if they will decide, we can support, but the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue started a long time ago. It would be good, to find a good solution as soon as possible because Serbia may be a member of the EU if the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue is resolved and vice versa, Kosovo can move forward if this Belgrade-Pristina dialogue is resolved very positively, but depends on both countries. We can support, the European Union can support, the US can support this process, but real work is done by Kosovo and Serbia”, he says.
Commenting on the Kosovo dialogue, Serbia, Bencze says they are interested in a better solution, while adding that Hungarian support will not be lacking in this respect.
“We are interested in resolving the best of the countries (Kosovo and Serbia) will agree, we can strongly support this agreement. We are interested in the Western Balkan countries being EU members and NATO members, including Kosovo”, he says.
He says that the fact that Kosovo has managed to meet the criteria needed for visa liberalisation makes Hungary pro-visa liberalisation for Kosovars.
“The Hungarian government's view is that Kosovo was an excellent student in this area... Hungary is a backer”, he says.
Hungarian Ambassador Jozsef Bencze also speaks of the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus, which hit the whole world.
He says that despite the problems that caused this virus, bilatheral co-operation between Hungary and Kosovo never lacked, thus producing its results in some areas.
The first wave was not a problem in Hungary, but the second wave is a big problem, but our bilateral co-operation was very successful in recent months. After arriving in Pristina in mid-September, I had the opportunity to meet 70 different, very important persons in Kosovo, in Pristina, many ministers and chiefs of various organisations, for example in police, customs and others, as well as several mayors in the country. It wasn't a problem. Some programmes were canceled because of pandemic, but in recent months, we had the opportunity to be successful”, he points out.
And some of the successful projects that were implemented under this bilaternal co-operation, Bencze says to be: the discovery of the Skenderbeu bust in Prizren, the signing of several agreements in the field of education and investment, as well as the signing of the agreement regarding the conditional loan, which contains five different projects for Kosovo, four of which have to deal with water management, and the fifth is a project of safety in traffic.
Moreover, in addition to the pandemic caused by Coronavirus, the Hungarian ambassador shows that even this year, as in past years, Kosovo students have the opportunity that through the <x0 scholarship programme Stipendium Hungary” to go for studies in Hungary.
