Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó discussed bilateral cooperation against the coronavirus pandemic and border measures with Alexander Schallenberg, his Austrian counterpart, at the Austria-Hungary border.
At the meeting on the Austrian side of the border, Szijjártó said the two countries were working together closely to tackle the pandemic. Hungary and Austria helped repatriate each other’s citizens during the first wave of the pandemic last spring and made sure that transit and freight traffic between them ran unimpeded, he said. Recently the two countries renewed consultations with a view to making it easier for Hungarian commuters to cross into Austria and back, he said. Szijjártó said Schallenberg had been “enormously helpful” in getting Austria to deploy more soldiers and police officers to the border to speed up border crossings. Another measure that will help commuters, he said, was Austria’s decision to increase the number of coronavirus testing centres. Concerning economic ties, Szijjárót said 31 Austrian companies had demonstrated their faith in cooperation with Hungary last year by investing a combined 18 billion forints (EUR 49.7m) in the country and saving 7,700 jobs in the process.
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