He was a member of the
Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) which he entered in 1988, which later he declared as a personal mistake. and
Viktor Orbán in the
White House. On 29 May 2010 he was reappointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs. His most prominent tasks were 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 was 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 number of integration issues has resolved during EU presidency, including
EU enlargement, the approval of the
Roma Framework Strategy and the
Danube Strategy, completion of accession negotiations with
Croatia, as well as progress towards the admission of
Romania and
Bulgaria to the
Schengen zone. == Memberships ==