Hungary builds army by making, exporting German world-class combat vehicles – PHOTOS
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Defence cooperation between Hungary and Germany is already under way, raising hopes that it will become long-term, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Saturday, at the inauguration of a factory building that will house a plant for Lynx combat vehicles.
At the event in Zalaegerszeg, in southwest Hungary, Orbán said Hungarians knew that “the best war is the one we manage to avoid.”
“The stronger we are, the smaller the chance of being dragged into war,”
he said. When building an army, “we prepare for the worst but we also open the door to a favourable future,” he said. Hungary partnered with German defence industry company Rheinmetall last year on the construction of the plant.
Orbán said he had earlier pinpointed defence as the most important industrial sector of the 2020’s. The most important task of the decade is to “create an Armed Forces that are capable of defending Hungary and enforce its interests, and which are ready to be deployed anywhere within the country or abroad if necessary,” he said.
Hungary needs the cutting-edge technology represented by the plant under construction and the nearby ZalaZone test track, he said.
Regarding Hungarian-German ties, Orbán said that while the political relations are “complicated”, economic ties are in excellent shape, and seem to garner political backing. The cooperation is in Hungary’s interest, “not only because Germany is strong but also because Hungarians are good at cooperating with Germans.” The new plant is a “new bar” for the Hungarian Armed Forces: