Extremely close Hungarian-German defence cooperation to be established, says Hungary’s FM in Berlin

“Extremely close defence and defence industry cooperation is to be established between Hungary and Germany; a Central European NATO division command is being set up with the support of Germany”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian public media on Thursday in Berlin.

On the sidelines of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s official visit to Berlin, the Minister held talks with Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen, Chairman of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee Norbert Röttgen (CDU) and Chairman of German Parliament’s European Affairs Committee Gunther Krichbaum (CDU).

Reporting on his meetings, Mr. Szijjártó highlighted: “The foundations for defence cooperation are provided by the fact that economic cooperation between Hungary and Germany is extremely close, in addition to which they are both working in alliance within NATO to assure that Europe is as safe as possible”.

“Bilateral military and defence industry cooperation will be closer than ever before, one of the important foundations of which is the fact that in the interests of the modernisation of the Hungarian Defence Force and the improvement of its regional competitiveness, a decision has been made to procure 20 new Airbus military helicopters”, he told the press.

Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about the fact that on examining the distribution of NATO’s division commands, it can be seen that the alliance has 22 division commands, but none of them can be found within the Central European region. “Accordingly, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia have jointly begun the establishment of a multinational regional division command”, he explained. “Host nation support for this cooperation will be provided by Germany”, he added.

“This joint division command will be part of NATO’s military structure and will achieve full operational capability by 2022; it will be a major added value towards guaranteeing the security of Hungary and Central Europe”, he noted.

The Foreign Minister also spoke about the fact that, in addition, Hungarian-German military cooperation has been extended to included military healthcare cooperation in view of the fact that NATO’s Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine in Budapest also has a department in Munich. “We confirmed our commitment towards the establishment of a joint military hospital capacity”, he added.