Hungary Balks at West Bank Product Labelling
Hungary will not label separately products made in the West Bank of the Golan Heights, its foreign minister said.
Péter Szijjártó, who is also Hungary’s trade minister, said on an overnight visit to Israel that the European Union’s guidelines for labeling goods that originate in Jewish settlements are “irrational” and does not contribute to solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Szijjártó announced his country’s opposition to the labeling guidelines on Monday morning at the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, according to reports. Also attending the council meeting was Lars Faaborg Andersen, the head of the E.U. delegation in Israel.
Szijjártó also called the attacks in Paris “a strong wake-up call for European politicians.”
Referencing the current refugee crisis, which he said should be called a “mass immigration,” Szijjártó said: “We must make serious decisions to protect our people, because we are currently defenseless. We must get back the ability to control our borders. We should not be speaking about how to manage migration, but how to help these people to stay at home.”
He called on the E.U. to strengthen its cooperation with Israel in fighting terrorism, citing Israel’s experience, knowledge and technology in fighting terrorism, according to the Jerusalem Post.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
