Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, held talks with his Czech counterpart, Jakub Kulhánek, on unimpeded travel of inoculated citizens into each other’s countries.
Minister Szijjártó said after the meeting in Budapest that they had agreed on the matter in principle, and the details would be clarified shortly. Kulhánek said the details of the agreement would be set down by the end of the week on lifting all travel restrictions between the two countries for inoculated citizens.
The minister said the Czech Republic was one of Hungary’s closest allies, and bilateral cooperation had been exemplary during the coronavirus epidemic in terms of helping to repatriate their respective citizens stranded abroad, while Hungary provided 150 ventilators and 40,000 vaccines to the Czech Republic by the end of May. Despite coronavirus-related impediments, trade turnover exceeded 9 billion euros and large companies of both countries actively invested in the other country, he noted. Oil and gas company MOL operates 304 petrol stations in the Czech Republic, while energy company MVM Energetika already has 1.5 million Czech customers.
Minister Szijjártó said nuclear energy is an important part of the national energy mix in both countries, adding that with a view to attaining climate targets, both jointly opposed negative discrimination against nuclear energy. He said both countries also agreed on issues concerning the European Union’s future, and both reject illegal migration and quotas, while prioritizing the protection of the EU’s external borders.