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.