Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to express my deep thanks and gratitude to the organizer of this event to M. Sandor Balogh in his capacity of President of African Hungarian Union, the Hungarian-Asian Society, the Hungarian-Latin-American Union giving as this a great opportunity to have this gathering together this evening. Let me also express my happiness and my satisfaction to be present here with you as friends and partners.
I am not going to deliver speech, I mean a real speech, but I would like just to share with you some words some ideas and some analysis about our assessment and our prospects relating the improvement, the consolidation and the future of the partnership and cooperation between Africa and Hungary.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last year, Africa as a whole was mobilized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of founding of the Organization of African Unity. For us, it was an opportunity to proceed individually, collectively and with our partners to assess the results of our efforts and achievements.
The celebration of the 50th anniversary of founding of OAU/AU was an opportunity to renew our appreciation for the achievements of the founding fathers of our organization and to reaffirm the relevance of their vision and our commitment to the noble goals they have set for the Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.
The declaration of the fiftieth anniversary of the African Union, adopted on 26th May in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), was an opportunity also to reaffirm the collective will of Africans to complete the process of decolonization of the continent and boost actions related to the objectives of African integration and cooperation in all areas of economic and social development as well as the integration process.
During the last fifty years, Africa has made significant achievements. Nevertheless, our continent continues to face serious challenges. To face them, we commit to explore all possibilities for mobilizing financial resources and to find appropriate partners who are ready to work with our continent. European countries have a specific role to play in this regard. The 4th Summit of the Africa-EU planned for April of this year in Brussels, will be a new occasion to enhance this partnership.
Hungary, as a European country has made by the past, a consequent contribution for African countries in many fields such as education, training, scholarships…etc. Today, Hungary shows its readiness to renew this cooperation and to establish a real partnership with Africa. By placing our continent at the center of interests of its foreign policy ‘’Global Opening’’, Hungary confirmed the new approach to rebuild those close relations of the recent past. In this regard, we really highly appreciate the new approach of the Hungarian diplomacy to develop and to enhance its representation in the whole African region. The sponsor and the personal participation of the MFA HE Janos MARTONYI to our Africa day reception last year, the organization of the first Budapest-Africa Forum, the reopening a few moths ago of the Hungarian Embassy in Abuja, the round trip of M. Zsolt NÉMETH in some African countries these days and the forthcoming visit of high Hungarian officials to African countries are a concrete result of this new approach.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We also want to salute the efforts of Hungary I the field of education, in particular the scholarships available for African students and the internship trainings like for example the internship about administrative reform that will take place at the end of this month in Budapest.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You are our partners. In this regard you offer us indeed a real opportunity to highlight the big potential of cooperation that exists between Africa, Latin America and Asia with Hungary in the framework of the global opening. We appreciate to work together with you to the benefit of our common goals. Long life for our cooperation and the partnership with Hungary.
Thank you!
H.E. Lounes Magramane, Ambassador of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria