NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has undertaken to prepare a report on to what extent Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Georgia are ready to join the Alliance by June 2014, MFA State Secretary Zsolt Németh declared following the two-day meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels on December 4.

Hungary’s position is that Montenegro and Macedonia could advance to a level of preparedness that would make them qualified to receive an invitation to join NATO at the upcoming Summit in Great Britain in September 2014, Mr. Németh said, while Bosnia-Herzegovina and Georgia could be involved in MAP (Membership Action Plan) activities.

The Hungarian State Secretary declared that the „open doors policy” of NATO would lose its credibility if the NATO Summit next year failed to make a decision on enlargement, because that would be the second summit without prospective enlargement.  The stabilizing role of NATO has been upgraded with respect to the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe because of the failure of the EU Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius to have the association agreement with Ukraine signed, he added.

Zsolt Németh said that capability development would be a major issue at the NATO Summit next year, adding that Hungary has undertaken to maintain the real value of its defence budget until 2015, after which it will start increasing the budget so as to double defence spending by 2022. The Hungarian State Secretary pointed out that more contributions can only be expected from the US within the framework of trans-Atlantic solidarity if its European allies also undertake a suitable level of burden sharing.

With regard to the NATO mission in Kosovo, State Secretary Németh confirmed that Hungary would be ready to double its KFOR presence when France and Morocco pull out their troops in 2014.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)