Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has congratulated Dirk Beljaarts, the newly appointed economy minister of the Dutch government, in a letter posted in Hungarian on Facebook on Wednesday.

Szijjártó expressed thanks and appreciation to Beljaarts, who is fluent in Hungarian, for his work during his service as an honorary consul over the past almost ten years and his achievements in developing Dutch-Hungarian relations. He noted that for the EU presidency Hungary took over on July 1 for six months, enhancing the community’s competitiveness was a special priority in which the minister said “we count on the support of the Netherlands and you”.

Secretary-General of Council of EU attends cabinet meeting

Prime Minister Viktor Orban met on Wednesday morning Therese Blanchet, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, who attended the first cabinet meeting the government held since Hungary took over the EU’s rotating presidency, the prime minister’s press chief said.

Blanchet and the members of the government reviewed at the joint working meeting the Hungarian presidency’s goals and discussed the tasks ahead and the timeframe of completing them, Bertalan Havasi said in a statement.

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