Did PM Orbán and opposition leader Péter Magyar meet in Stuttgart earlier today? – UPDATED
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had a working lunch with Ola Kallenius, the chairman and chief executive of the Mercedes-Benz Group in Stuttgart on Wednesday, the prime minister’s press chief said.
The talks focused on the upcoming Hungarian EU presidency’s plans to improve Europe’s competitiveness and develop its economy, as well as the status of Mercedes-Benz’s current investment projects.
Here are the photos he shared of the meeting. Orbán said in the post that they “played a friendly match in Stuttgart” with the company CEO. Orbán referred to the EURO 2024 match of the Hungarian national team starting at 6.00 pm today against Germany. A lot depends on that. Chiefly, it may decide whether Hungary has a chance to emerge from its group to the Round of 16. The match will take place in Stuttgart’s Mercedes-Benz Arena.
Meanwhile, Péter Magyar, the rising star of the Hungarian opposition who garnered almost 30% at the 9 June EP elections, was also in Stuttgart today. That means Orbán and Magyar could have even met there. At the beginning of the 2010s, Magyar worked as a Fidesz MEP assistant in the European Parliament.
Magyar shared a photo with two of his kids before they visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum. He wrote that after the visit, they would go to the stadium. Orbán also shared a photo of the museum, which you can see above. Below is Magyar’s post:
FM Szijjártó holds talks with Mercedes top executives in Stuttgart
Investments by Mercedes-Benz are creating the largest-capacity car-manufacturing plant in Hungary, further strengthening the country’s economy and automotive industry, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after meeting the top executives of the company in Stuttgart on Wednesday.
“All this will help put Hungary among the winners of a new global economic era,” Szijjártó said, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.
The talks took place “in a fundamentally decisive period” in the automotive industry which is undergoing “a revolutionary transformation”, Szijjártó said.
“This is a situation when not only automotive companies, but also countries are competing for the opportunities, investments and developments that will decide which countries will be among the winners of the new era in the future, and which will either suffer a disadvantage or will be unable to take full advantage of this emerging industry,” the foreign minister said. He said Hungary was on the right track “to belong among the winners of the new era of the automotive industry,” adding that “this will bring several new jobs, modern technologies and economic growth to Hungary”.
Mercedes-Benz is a key stakeholder in the global automotive industry and a frontrunner in the global transition to electromobility, said Szijjártó. It is also key for Hungary’s economic growth as it is implementing an investments worth 600 billion forints (EUR 1.5bn) in the country, he added.
The investment being implemented in Kecskemet, in central Hungary, will create capacity to make conventional, hybrid and fully electric vehicles, Szijjártó said, adding that Mercedes-Benz would increase its workforce in Hungary to 8,000-9,000.
“The expansion of Mercedes’ capacities is good news for the entire Hungarian corporate sector, and the entire Hungarian economy, since 42 percent of Mercedes’ suppliers are Hungarian companies,” the foreign minister said.
Orbán meets Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg
PM Orbán on Wednesday attended an official reception organised by the German state of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart ahead of a Hungary-Germany football match, the prime minister’s press chief said. On the sidelines of the event, Orbán held bilateral talks with Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann, Bertalan Havasi said.
Baden-Württemberg was Hungary’s 12th most important trade partner in 2023. Of all German states, it was the second largest trade partner for Hungary in terms of total turnover. A highlighted project in bilateral relations is the Andrassy University, the only German-language university outside German-speaking countries, he added.
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2 Comments
I wish more young Hungarians would pick up German … I am one of the few in our company who masters German. It is always an issue to find people to join meetings with German companies. Because, guess what: they prefer communicating in their language to English!
I think the lack of German knowledge in Hungary is a serious issue looking forward, especially now that the UK has left the EU and is experiencing severe economic stagnation. German used to be the most widely studied second language in Hungary, English and French came a distant second, then, around the turn of the millennium English became by the language of choice and with good reason at the time. This directly contributed to the huge outflow of Hungarian emigrees seeking work in the UK which peaked around 2010. Now that Germany has become such a major economic partner of Hungary and both Germany and Austria offer a slew of well-paid jobs, Hungarians find they don’t have the language skills necessary to enter the fray.