Hungarian minister proud that both German and Chinese battery plants are built in Hungary

As part of Hungary’s strategy of “economic neutrality”, German car and Chinese battery plants are being built side by side in Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign affairs and trade minister, said in Brussels on Thursday. “This is the way it is, whether people like it or not,” he said.

Szijjártó told a press conference that the government’s strategy based on economic neutrality was a success.

After a meeting of the European Union Council on trade matters, the minister said Hungary was now a hub for investments from the East and West, noting that German car companies producing electric vehicles relied on the Chinese supply of batteries and other components.

“Maybe some don’t like it ideologically, but that’s the way it is,” he said.

He said only 12 EU member states voted to levy tariffs on the Chinese electric car industry “yet the measures will come into force”.

Szijjártó said Europe was “not doing well” in the new world of the economy and politics, and that “connectivity” was preferable to “sanctions, customs duties and restrictions”.

He said Hungary’s embrace of Eastern and Western companies had led to the creation of “tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs” as well as cutting-edge investments in Hungary.

The minister noted that Hungary had entered into “many disputes with other member states and members of the European Commission” over its policy, and “these disputes are here to stay in the future. But, of course, we’ll fight them.”

‘Economic cold war’ would be against EU, Hungary’s interests, says FM Szijjártó

An “economic cold war” would be against the interests of the European Union and Hungary, Peter Szijjarto, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Brussels on Thursday, adding that sanctions and tariffs had never lived up to expectations, but instead hampered growth.

Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council that today’s global trends presented a realistic threat of the outbreak of an “economic cold war” and the re-emergence of geopolitical blocs.

“Over the past months the Hungarian presidency has been working and will continue to work to make sure that the coming period isn’t defined by the formation of blocs but connectivity, meaning … fair international cooperation,” Szijjártó said, according to a ministry statement.

He said this would guarantee the conditions for improving Europe’s “depressed competitiveness”.

“So we believe the European Union’s, and with it Hungary’s interests lie in the unimpeded operation of the global economy and global trade,” he said. This, he said, required free trade deals, adding however that the bloc had work to do in this regard, with talks having been ongoing on six such deals for 13 years on average and suspended on ten others.

“We believe that tariffs, restrictions and sanctions have never lived up to expectations and have severely hampered economic growth,” the minister said.

Hungary wants to keep the unanimity requirement

Meanwhile, he said several member states have called for the introduction of new tariffs against Russia and Belarus, adding that the European Commission has begun taking steps on the initiative. “We Hungarians consider this initiative seriously concerning and dangerous given that there hasn’t been any kind of comprehensive analysis of the impact of the 11 sanctions packages introduced so far,” he said.

“And we certainly don’t want any member state to introduce tariffs in order to bypass the requirement of unanimity which has to be met in the case of sanctions,” he added.

Szijjártó noted that member states have veto power when it comes to the introduction of sanctions in the event that a given sanction violates their national security or economic interests, and Hungary has exercised this right multiple times.

He warned that bypassing the unanimity requirement with the introduction of tariffs would be harmful, expressing concern over proposals to introduce tariffs on energy sources, which, he said, the Hungarian government considered “unacceptable”.

“We reject this sort of elimination of the unanimity requirement and ask the European Commission to consider each member state’s national security and economic interests when conducting the preliminary analysis of such a measure,” the minister said.

Meanwhile, he said the election of Donald Trump as the next US president created “completely new geopolitical and global economic conditions”.

“And if someone doesn’t realise this and buries their head in the sand and pretends that nothing’s happening, they can lose out big on such a huge change,” he warned.

“That’s why we think a new strategy is needed here in Europe as well,” Szijjártó said. “A new strategy is needed so that the European Union doesn’t end up as the loser in the triangle of the United States, the European Union and China.”

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