Hungary and the integration endeavours of the Western Balkans region

The stability of the region of the neighbouring Western Balkans is of special interest to Hungarian foreign policy. The sustainable and reassuring settlement of the region’s situation and development can be realised through its Euro-Atlantic integration.

Hungarian foreign policy supports the efforts of all countries of the Western Balkan region to join the Euro-Atlantic framework in both political and practical ways. In respect of the latter, it is considered essential that the countries of the region should also make efforts to further advance their own relations and co-operation.

From the very beginning, Hungary has lent consistent support to the Western Balkan countries’ endeavours to join NATO. It therefore welcomed the invitation to Albania and Croatia given at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008 to begin accession negotiations. In the interest of the region’s stability and security, we stress the importance of Macedonia receiving an invitation as soon as possible.

Hungarian foreign policy likewise supports the activities of the rest of the Western Balkans region - Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia - in their closer ties to NATO. Consequently it welcomes the invitation these countries received at the NATO summit in Riga in 2006 to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP), as well as the conference of leaders of NATO countries at the 2008 Bucharest summit which resulted in an invitation to Bosnia Herzegovina and Montenegro to pursue intensive dialogue while leaving open this possibility to Serbia, too. The substantive and intensive dialogue between NATO and the countries concerned secures a new quality in relations.

On a practical level, Hungary is sharing its own experiences of NATO / PfP accession with the exchange of data, and it strives to help the countries of the region in their preparations and reforms in both bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

In its efforts in this direction, Hungarian foreign policy puts great significance on co-operation with domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations, too (e.g. the Szeged Centre for Security Policy, The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), etc.).