Hongaars voorzitterschap probeerde de moeilijkste kwesties te overwinnen (en)

“We thought that it was not our job to follow the path of least resistance during the term of the Hungarian Presidency, but to overcome the most difficult issues,” said Eniko Gyori i, Minister of State for EU Affairs at the meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), in Brussels on 15 June 2011.

The economic crisis is accompanied by low levels of employment, high public debt and demographic issues; therefore, the Presidency has tried to take steps to ease these problems.“We were not afraid to set goals, which required us to solving difficult problems,” the Minister of State reminded MEPs at the meeting of the EU advisory body.

“We are sticking to the schedule and there has been progress in all priorities,” she stressed.On the other hand, she did not conceal the fact that the Presidency still has important tasks to perform in the coming two weeks, so its performance cannot be assessed just yet.

The Presidency did not want to only mitigate the chances of a future economic crisis, but wanted to also lay the foundation for sustainable growth, she said.“Until we can create jobs, European citizens will not believe that what we are doing, is for their interest”, the Minister of State underlined.

She said that the main tools for creating jobs are the Europe 2020 Strategy and the closely related economic policy coordination cycle, the European Semester.“The schedule was very tight, but thanks to the good cooperation between the EU bodies and the Member States, we can close the first European Semester,” said Mrs Gyori.

In her opinion, the country-specific recommendations that were presented in the Commission on 7 June proved that there is a change in quality, compared to the prior Lisbon Strategy.The current mechanism clearly shows what commitments a Member State makes, for example in the field of job creation or education, and how it wants to implement them.

Mrs Gyori also mentioned that the Presidency did not forget about catching up those on the edge of society, which is the aim of the European Framework of the Roma Integration Strategy.She also praised the Presidential results on the set of actions regarding the unified market.“I am confident that the European Commission will initiate specific legislative acts in order to take as much advantage of the Single Market as possible,” she said.

Cooperation with NGOs

The Minister of State thanked the EESC for its cooperation with kind words.The EU advisory body wrote seven opinions for the Presidency, among which she highlighted documents on family policy and demography.She delivered the acknowledgement of the Presidency for the several EESC programmes held in Hungary.

She said like the EESC, the Hungarian Presidency has paid special attention to involving NGOs in its work.“Before the Council meetings, the Hungarian Ministers sat down with the NGOs, listened to their opinions, and travelled to Brussels with this ammunition,” said Mrs Gyori.