Many European Union countries need to “stop being hypocritical and deceiving candidate countries” in order to speed up the bloc’s enlargement, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Thursday. He argued that while all member states publicly supported enlargement, when it came time to make a decision they were “less enthusiastic”. Szijjártó brought up the example of Montenegro as the country with which the EU has opened the most accession chapters. Szijjártó expressed hope that significant progress could be made in Montenegro’s accession this year, vowing that the Hungarian EU presidency do everything it can to bring the country closer to EU membership. But in order to speed up enlargement, he said, member states needed to “stop being hypocritical and deceiving the candidate countries”.

Source: The Guardian January 12, 2024 02:17 UTC