Foreign Minister János Martonyi represented Hungary at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Vientiane, Laos, on November 5-6. The Hungarian Foreign Minister spoke about the outstanding role of water resources in sustainable development and about sustainable water management at the summit.

Three new countries – Norway, Switzerland and Bangla Desh – joined the ASEM forum in Laos this week. The summit is organized every second year, while the foreign ministers meet in the years between. Hungary hosted the last ASEM Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on June 6-7, 2011, in the framework of the Hungarian EU Presidency. More than fifty countries have joined ASEM cooperation, which affords Hungary a role that exceeds by far the country’s political and economic weight.

The political leaders at the Vientiane Summit discussed the opportunities of regional cooperation to cope with the global economic and financial crisis as well as the issues related to sustainable development, to energy, food and water security, and to climate change. The promotion of human rights and the major questions of regional and global politics were also discussed.

The Hungarian delegation underlined that more intensive international cooperation is required in global water policy in order to promote sustainability, and Hungary considers it imperative that the issue of water management play a more emphatic role in ASEM cooperation. The participants of the forum were informed about the ASEM Seminar hosted in Budapest this June, the aim of which was to promote cooperation between the Danube and the Mekong macro-regions concerning sustainable water management. The ASEM member states approved the Hungarian proposal – which was part of the Budapest Initiative, a document adopted at the ASEM Seminar – to continue the ASEM Sustainable Development Dialogue, which started in Budapest. The next seminar will be held in Vietnam, and the one following it in Romania.

Hungary supports the decision made at the Rio+20 UN Sustainable Development Conference about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hungary also undertook the task of elaborating the SDG on water management and sanitation under the aegis of the ’Friends of Water’, a group set up under the aegis of the UN. The Hungarian government will present the results of this initiative at the UN Conference on Water Affairs, which will be held in Budapest in 2013.

(Prime Minister's Office)