Brunei’s FM Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof held talks in Hungary

The European Union must break out of its international isolation if it is to regain its competitiveness, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said on Tuesday, calling for closer relations with South-East Asia.

“Brunei is an extremely important player in a region with a growing political and economic significance in the world,” Péter Szijjártó told a joint press conference with Brunei his counterpart Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof, adding that that country was currently coordinating cooperation between the EU and the Alliance of South-East Asian Nations.

Szijjártó noted that the visit was the first to Hungary by a foreign minister of Brunei and, as such, was a landmark of bilateral diplomacy, according to a ministry statement. He said the centre of the global economy was shifting more and more to the east, while “the EU has become seriously isolated in recent years from the greatest players in global politics and the economy”.

The EU “isolated itself from the United States as European politicians compete with one another in defaming President Donald Trump; it became isolated from the Chinese economy owing to its duties on electric vehicles; it isolated itself from Russia thanks to its position on the war; and it became isolated from Africa, a continent of the future, by making economic cooperation conditional on all kinds of so called progressive expectations,” Szijjártó said.