Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs gave assurances to his Romanian counterpart Mircea Geoana in a telephone conversation on 24 July that his country is not demanding to participate in the accession negotiations currently under way between Romania and the EU, the Romanian news agency Mediafax reported.

Kovacs told Geoana that Budapest merely wishes to be informed of the course of the negotiations because the two countries have shared interests, including border security, the agency said. Kovacs added that Hungary wants a successful completion of negotiations between Romania and Brussels in line with decisions reached at the EU summits in Copenhagen last year and in Thessaloniki this year.

Tensions arose after Hungarian EU Integration Minister Endre Juhasz made statements interpreted in Bucharest as being aimed at involving Budapest in Romania's accession negotiations

(RFE/RL 25.vii.03)