EU Affairs Minister János Bóka said the results of the recent European parliamentary elections reflect a “demand for change” and the Hungarian EU presidency is to “promote and represent that demand”.
Speaking at the Bálványos Summer University in Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő), in Romania, Bóka said the EU had given “ill-advised responses” in areas such as competitiveness, cohesion and agricultural policy, or demographic challenges. “Changes involve political conflicts; we will act responsibly if we act as an honest mediator but do not refrain from those conflicts,” the minister said. He called for a fundamental change in the EU’s approach, which he said should focus on the “value-added in integration”. “The success of the EU should be evaluated on that basis… In the past five years the EU failed because acting together did not yield the value added that members could have achieved separately, on their own,” he said.