Serbia, Hungary Will ‘Rebuild, Protect, Central Europe’, Orban Says

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Hungary and Serbia had "agreed to rebuild Central Europe", after a joint government session with Serbia in Budapest on Wednesday.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and her Hungarian counterpart Orban signed an agreement on cordial relations and their strategic partnership.

In the press release issued after the signing of the agreement, Orban said: "I have thought a lot about how I could summarize what was discussed at the meeting, and I think it is best to say that the two countries have agreed to rebuild Central Europe.

"However, at the moment, it is not enough just to rebuild Central Europe, but we must also protect it, to guarantee the security of Central Europe," he added.

Orban noted that "developments in Afghanistan suggest a large wave of migration that could lead to a very difficult situation both for Hungary and Serbia.

"It is clear to us that those migrants do not want to live in Serbia or Hungary, but want to go to Western European countries, which means that if we stand in the way of migrations, we are also defending Western European countries, for example Austria, Germany," Orban observed.

"That is assignment history, determined to us, not for the first time, that we defend Europe," he claimed.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic (L) and her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban speak following the 6th Hungarian-Serbian government summit in Budapest, 8 September 2021. EPA-EFE/Zoltan Mathe HUNGARY OUT

This was the sixth joint session of two countries' governments, following the first in 2014 and the last one in 2019. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said this spoke about the high level of Serbian-Hungarian cooperation.

"The level of our...