Government: Hungary, Romania are engines of development

The only solution to the crisis in Europe is maintaining cooperation, the state secretary for policy for Hungarians across the borders told the Transylvania Economic Forum held in Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely) on Saturday.

In his welcoming address, Árpád János Potápi said the Russia-Ukraine war and the European response to it “made economic development impossible” in Europe at a time when Hungary, Romania and the region had become the engine of that development. The region saw a high rate of development, falling unemployment and growing wages before the war, he said.

Hungary has used economic development as a policy to boost national cohesion, by supporting training and organised mentor programmes in Hungarian communities across the borders, he said.

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Besides the development schemes, the government continues to support entrepreneurs in an attempt to create a community and network strengthening ethnic Hungarian communities across the borders, he said.

Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Hunor Kelemen of the ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party said the war, “which seemed regional at first”, shook the foundations of European economy, prompting states to interfere with market trends to protect their citizens and companies. The disruption of global supply chains makes it likely that world economy will be reconstructed on a regional level in the case of a ceasefire, he said.

“A crisis is always an opportunity for those able to think flexibly, innovatively and creatively,” he said. Sharing knowledge and experience among entrepreneurs of the Carpathian Basin is a good way to find those opportunities, he said.