Brussels, 19/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The EU/Hungary Association Council, which met on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Community Council President Hubert Védrine (the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Mr Matonyi, headed his country's delegation and High Representative for CFSP Javier Solana, Commissioner Verheugen and the Swedish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr H. Dahlgren, were part of the Community delegation) noted the following:
- Hungary's progress in preparing for EU membership. This country continues to fulfil the political criteria of Copenhagen and it is implementing this medium term programme in favour of the Rom community. Hungary has reached a high level of macro-economic stability and its growth is satisfactory. The EU has encouraged it to better control inflation and to reduce the budgetary deficit. At the same time, the alignment of the legislation on acquis communautarie is progressing (standardisation, customs, statistics, etc. but also, at least partially, on the environment). The Association Council stressed the importance of preparing the economic operators for the legislative changes and invited Hungary to pursue the effort of reform of public administration.
- Hungary's growing participation in Community activities in the context of the association agreement. Hungary was the first country of Central and Eastern Europe to move onto the second phase in association (last June), comprising a high level of liberalisation, mainly as regards the provisions on establishment. Mutual liberalisation measures for agricultural trade came into effect in July (but the agreement on wines must be renewed as it expires at the end of the year). The steel industry's restructuring plan has been presented and is now being examined. The agreement on road transit was signed in July. Hungary takes part in the Community programmes Socrates II, Leonardo da Vinci II, Health, AIDs prevention and the fight against cancer, SAVE II (energy saving), the fifth research programme, etc. This participation allows the Hungarian administration to gain practical experience that will directly help accession. Of course, Hungary also fully participates in the new pre-accession instruments: SAPARD (agriculture), ISPA (structural policy), the revised PHARE programme, etc.
A third element is that the Association Council welcomed Hungary's active participation in regional cooperation actions and initiatives (Visegrad group, CEFTA) and also its contribution to the Stability Pact.