UNAOC Group of Friends Ministerial Meeting, UNHQ, NY
September 30, 2012

Dear High Representative Sampaio,
Members of the Group of Friends,
Dear Colleagues,

Let me first of all express my gratitude to You, President Sampaio for inviting us to this most important ministerial meeting of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations today.

We highly appreciate and acknowledge your efforts in leading the Alliance through today’s challenging times. Under your leadership, the Alliance of Civilizations has indeed become a well recognized UN platform for intercultural dialogue and cooperation, devoted to promoting trust, tolerance and respect among human beings of different beliefs, cultures and languages.

Hungary is fully dedicated to the success of the Alliance and shares its result-oriented goals in particular when promoting a common understanding of cultural diversity on a global level. When holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first six months of last year, we put special emphasis on these values.

We support the cultural diversity approach of minority cultures and languages. Minority rights are necessary because they promote cultural diversity and protect the richness of cultural heritage. We are convinced therefore that intercultural dialogue should respect the equal value of minority cultures and languages. Belonging to a community, based on diversity, equality and participation is a common aspiration shared by all people – this is a message emerging from the Arab Spring we experienced.

However, with regard to the recent deadly events in Benghazi and incidents elsewhere, it is clear that international action should focus more on the development and implementation of forward-looking strategies in dealing with religious extremism which still too often inspires violence with political purpose. Dialogue and consensus building, dispute management, mediation and conflict resolution are more needed than ever. We firmly believe that the UN Alliance of Civilizations – in cooperation with other international actors – is an appropriate platform to address these challenges.

In this respect, we fully agree with your suggestion, High Representative, to find the dividing line between freedom of expression and hate speech.

How all this can be implemented in an effective way and under a responsible leadership is the main issue to deal with at the forthcoming 5th Alliance of Civilizations Global Forum, hosted by Austria in February of next year. We mostly welcome the Vienna propositions and are ready to take an active part in its endeavors.

As a multi-stakeholder initiative, the Alliance, indeed, has to reinforce its actions at grass-roots level in particular by enhancing a global network of non-State players, civil society, voluntary organizations and foundations when finding new mechanisms for early response and crisis management tools.

President Sampaio, we support your proposals, put forward recently to scale up the capacity of the Alliance to deliver and we are ready to make more commitments to the Alliance of Civilizations when offering to host a “cluster office” in Hungary.

When concluding, dear High Representative, let me reiterate Hungary’s full commitment to and appreciation of the goals and results of the Alliance of Civilizations, a precious tool in our hands for the benefit of the one and only human civilization. We very much look forward to the Vienna Forum and its successful outcome.

Thank you for your attention.

(Külügyminisztérium)