János Martonyi

János Martonyi
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 May 2010
Preceded by	Péter Balázs
In office 8 July 1998 – 27 May 2002
Preceded by	László Kovács
Succeeded by	László Kovács
Personal details
Born	(1944-04-05) 5 April 1944 Kolozsvár, Kingdom of Hungary
Political party	MSZMP, Fidesz
Profession	diplomat, lawyer, politician

The native form of this personal name is Martonyi János. This article uses the Western name order.

János Martonyi (born in Kolozsvár, Hungary (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania), 5 April 1944) is a Hungarian politician and Foreign Minister of Hungary. He is a member of the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union party, and was also Foreign Minister between 1998 and 2002. More recently he was part of the Amato Group that unofficially drafted a new treaty for the European Union after the European Constitution was rejected by the French and Dutch voters.

In April 2007, Hungarian journalist Péter Kende reported in a weekly newspaper that Martonyi delivered reports to the Hungarian secret police in the 1960s, and that secret police files confirmed this. According to the files, Martonyi wrote among other things reports on the Hungarian emigrant scene in Germany and France.

János Martonyi (right) with George W. Bush and Viktor Orbán in the White House.

On 29 May 2010 he was reappointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His most prominent tasks are the development of a strong and effective foreign policy, and planning for Hungarian Presidency of the European Union from January to July 2011. He visited Slovakia before his inauguration on the occasion of the passing of the Hungarian law allowing citizenship to be given to Hungarians living in neighboring countries. The Slovak government has considered the new law to be an aggressive move, with insufficient negotiation between the two countries. Martonyi said that hysteria in Slovakia is a result of the election campaign there.

Martonyi's foreign policy's motto is a quote from 17th century poet Miklós Zrínyi: "Don't hurt the Hungarian!"

His first visit abroad was to Serbia. Martonyi mentioned the improved relations between the two countries. He said that Hungary has to help Serbia join the European Union. Martonyi met Vuk Jeremić who said the Hungarian EU Presidency will be very important for the integration of the Western Balkan countries. The Hungarian foreign minister also met Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković and President Boris Tadić.

At the end of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union he said "the past six months of Hungary’s EU presidency demonstrated that Europe was able to function and react to challenges, even if sometimes slowly and unevenly". Martonyi noted that several objectives of the EU presidency could be summed up under the heading of “integration”. This category, he said, included the issue of EU enlargement, the approval of the Roma framework strategy and the Danube Strategy as well as progress towards the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen zone.

Martonyi is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

References

Political offices
Preceded by László Kovács	Minister of Foreign Affairs 1998–2002	Succeeded by László Kovács
Preceded by Péter Balázs	Minister of Foreign Affairs 2010–	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Steven Vanackere	President of the Council of the European Union 2011	Succeeded by Radosław Sikorski