Visegrád Four

Hungarian foreign minister: Hungary-Slovakia ties ‘at their best’

Hungary Slovakia

Ties between Hungary and Slovakia are “at their best” and based on mutual respect, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a press conference in Bratislava on Wednesday.

Szijjártó said that the two countries are “building success stories so that they can address serious issues”.

The minister said that Hungary and Slovakia were planning to complete 9 major joint projects by 2023, including a new bridge over the River Danube connecting Komárom and Komarno, a motorway between Budapest and Prague, as well as three new bridges across the River Ipoly. He also mentioned such projects under way as linking the electricity grids of the two countries, planned to be completed by 2020, and preparations for a high-speed rail service between capitals of the four Visegrád countries.

On another subject, Szijjártó said the government would press ahead with its scheme promoting Hungarian businesses in southern Slovakia.

So far, over 1,500 bidders have been awarded, he said, adding that the scheme would also benefit Slovakia’s economy.

Concerning Slovakia’s upcoming municipal elections, Szijjártó noted the ethnic Hungarian MKP party was fielding over 2,250 candidates. He said hopefully Slovakian Hungarians would cast ballots in large numbers.

Hungary and Slovakia see eye to eye on most issues concerning the European Union’s future, Szijjártó said.

He noted that 10 out of Slovakia’s 13 MEPs had refused to support the Sargentini report on the rule of law in Hungary and expressed thanks to those deputies for “supporting Hungary’s sovereignty”.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also discussed ways to tighten Visegrád Group relations at talks with Slovak counterpart Miroslav Lajcak and House speaker Andrej Danko. The talks with Lajcak focused on the challenges facing central Europe, Szijjártó said after the meeting.

Due to their migration policies, the countries of the region have been subjected to a series attacks, mainly within the European Union, which are expected to continue, he said.

Their reactions, however, have made it clear that the Visegrád Group is stronger and more united than ever before, he added.

The talks with Danko focused on the House speaker’s proposal for a resolution in which the Slovak parliament could defend Hungary’s sovereignty as against the Sargentini report, Szijjártó said.

Featured image: MTI

Central Europe expects Commission to conclude Brexit deal, says Hungarian foreign minister in UK

Chevening Hungary

Central European countries expect the European Commission and other relevant EU institutions to make every effort to reach an agreement on the terms of Brexit, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said on Sunday.

Britain’s exit from the European Union spells bad news for the bloc, Szijjarto said.

The minister attended an informal meeting of Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt and representatives of the Visegrad countries, as well as Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania in Chevening, in south-east England.

Szijjártó told MTI that

the CEE region expects the EU to reach a Brexit deal which both sides can acknowledge as fair.

Failure to reach such an agreement would seriously undermine the interests of Central Europe, he said, adding that the region’s trade volume with Britain is massive, while British investments in the region’s economies are intensive. Further, millions of central Europeans study in Britain, and their rights must be guaranteed.

He branded the performance of the European Commission over the past four and a half years as “scandalous”, insisting that it had caused the EU “very serious damage”.

Szijjártó said a once stable transatlantic relationship had become fragile. Moreover, the inability to respond to the migration crisis had been corrosive, he said. Next year, for the first time in the EU’s history, there will be a decrease in the number of member states, he added.

Central Europeans have a clear interest in Brexit talks concluding with the deepest, most comprehensive and broadest possible free trade agreement, he said. Otherwise EU trade in the UK will continue with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, creating “extremely serious difficulties”, he added.

Given the emergence of a global trade war, Europe needs free trade agreements, strategic partnerships and friends, he said. Britain and the European Union cannot afford to part ways without such an agreement.

If Brexit does not happen accordingly, the four Visegrad countries will want to conclude joint initiatives to maintain and expand relations with Britain, Szijjártó said.

“We hope that we won’t have to consider scenarios that for a period after Brexit would be without an agreement. If this were to happen, it would be necessary to talk about it, but for now, any such scenario would be detrimental to the negotiations,” the minister said.

Photo: MTI

Hungarian economy minister sees growing opportunities for Hungarian firms in Asia

Daily News Hungary economy

More and more Hungarian companies will be doing business in Asia, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said on Friday in Bali on the sidelines of an IMF and World Bank annual meeting.

After talks with Danny Alexander, head of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Varga said Hungary will receive direct access to new projects through the bank, enabling Hungarian companies to appear on Asian markets.

The bank, which Hungary joined last year, provides cheap financing for projects in Asia worth a combined 1,000 billion dollars, the minister noted.

Hungarian firms with a background in water management are most likely to assume a visible presence there, the finance ministry said in a statement.

Varga also said

the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group had recognised the achievements of Hungarian economic policy, given the IMF has revised its Hungarian growth forecast upward.

The finance minister also announced that he had invited Alexander to the Budapest Water Summit in October next year with a view to bolstering the bank’s efforts to strengthen its European ties.

Varga had talks with World Bank head Cyril Mueller, as well as Karin Finkelston, vice-president of the International Finance Corporation. The talks focused on the World Bank Group’s assistance to Hungarian companies in their international activities as well as to the Visegrad Group’s efforts to build a common regional strategy, the statement said.

Visegrád Group in focus at Budapest Art Market

Art Market Budapest

The Visegrád Group countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia will be in special focus at this year’s Art Market international contemporary art fair in Budapest between October 11-14, the founder and director of the event said on Tuesday.

The event will highlight sculptor Lukas Rittstein from the Czech Republic, photographer Anikó Robitz from Hungary, painter Tomek Baran from Poland and media artist Erik Sikora from Slovakia, Attila Ledényi told a press conference.

British photographers Jimmy Nelson and Thomas Hodges will personally attend the event, as well as the French artist Michel Platnic who lives in Israel.

Coinciding with the fair Budapest will host a Visegrád Contemporary art festival and a New Visegrád Photography exhibition presenting the works of a new generation of V4 photographers, he said.

The Art Market fair will this year show works by some 500 artists from four continents in the Millenáris cultural centre, he said.

For that matter, Hungarian incubator Design Terminal is mentoring four startups from the region before taking them on a roadshow in the Visegrád Group countries.

The startups, one each from the V4 countries of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, were selected as finalists in Design Terminal’s V4 Startup Force programme.

They are Aeriu, from Hungary, which uses commercial drones to do inventory control; Aibrace, from the Czech Republic, which makes an emergency bracelet for people with life-threatening health problems; Freya, from Slovakia, which focuses on family planning; and Runvido, from Poland, which uses the latest technology to ease business communications.

Design Terminal is partnering on V4 Startup Force with the Visegrád Fund, the Foundation for Technology Entrepreneurship, 0100 Campus and UP21.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/ArtMarketBudapest

The Visegrad Group to build Budapest-Bratislava-Brno-Warsaw express railway

train railway

The Visegrad Group countries have decided to jointly build a high-speed railway connecting Budapest, Bratislava, Brno, and Warsaw, the Hungarian foreign minister said after talks with the transport ministers of the other three members in northern Slovakia on Monday.

The decision coincides with the political interests of all four members of the group comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian public media at Lake Strba (Csorba-tó) in the High Tatras.

The public procurement tender for drawing up a feasibility study for the project will be called as early as this week, he said.

The next step will be to convene a Visegrad Four working group of officials representing the four countries in November, he added.

Szijjártó said the public procurement process would last for half a year and the feasibility study would be completed in a year and a half or two years.

The new, two-track line would be suitable for trains up to a speed of 250 km/h.

The trains will only stop in the three capital cities and Brno, he said.

The talks were attended by representatives of the European Investment Bank (EIB). The bank has so far financed lots of rail projects but only 14 percent of them were in central Europe, Szijjarto said, adding that loan offers will also be invited from other financial institutions, too.

“This will be a typical Visegrad project, with all the four countries involved in talks on funding,” he said.

As we wrote before, Hungary and China both want to conclude talks on conditions for financing the upgrade of the Belgrade-Budapest rail line by the end of this year, Szijjártó said, read more HERE.

Orbán cabinet: European Commission goes against will of member states

Juncker

The European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship “is going completely against the will of Europe’s nations”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in reaction to the commissioner’s latest call on EU member states to honour their commitments to take in migrants.

Dimitris Avramopoulos made the call at an accompanying event of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Neither Hungary, the Visegrad Group countries nor any other European country want to legalise immigration,

Szijjártó said. Though the European Commission is trying to force it, there are a number of member states that have no desire to become “immigrant countries”, he added.

Szijjártó called it “unacceptable and outrageous” that Avramopoulos was speaking on the migration issue on behalf of the European Union “when he knows very well that a number of member states disagree” with the bloc’s migrant relocation scheme.

“This is the same reason why we haven’t accepted and will not accept the UN’s migration package,” he said.

At the event focusing on solidarity towards refugees, Avramopoulos expressed hope that EU member states will soon approve the EU’s refugee relocation scheme. He expressed the EU’s support for the UN’s migration package and noted that EU member states had made voluntary commitments to take in refugees.

In line with those commitments, 50,000 migrants should be distributed among member states by the end of next year, but so far only 13,200 have been relocated, the commissioner said.

Photo: MTI/AP/Jean-Francois Badias

Hungarian wage growth reaches 12.8 pc, average net wage was 672 euros

Ikarus bus

The average gross monthly wage in Hungary stood at 326,724 forints (EUR 1,010) in July, up 12.8 percent year-on-year, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said on Thursday.

Gross wage growth has been in the double digits since early last year, lifted by an agreement on minimum wage increases as well as a labour shortage.

As we wrote before, with the beginning of September, schools are open to greet enrolled students once again. However, there might not be enough teachers to take care of them due to the crisis of the education system, read more HERE.

The average net monthly wage was 217,271 forints (672 euros), also up by 12.8 percent.

The average monthly wage included about 17,947 forints in bonuses and benefits.

Excluding the some 113,400 Hungarians in fostered work programmes, gross wages rose by 11.4 percent to 337,058 forints and net wages stood at 224,143 forints. Fostered workers working full time earned a gross monthly 82,219 forints on average in July, 0.9 percent more than a year earlier.

Real wage growth came to 9.1 percent, calculating with a July CPI of 3.4 percent.

In the business sector, which includes state-owned companies, gross wages were up 11.1 percent at 335,084 forints in July. Excluding fostered workers they rose by 10.9 percent to 335,588 forints.

In the public sector, gross wages climbed 16.9 percent to 312,847 forints. The rise was 12.9 percent excluding fostered workers, to 347,440 forints a month.

Hungarians working in industry earned a gross monthly 341,029 forints on average in July.

Construction workers earned 256,182 forints, those in the ICT sector made 554,517 forints and those in finance and insurance got 585,437 forints. In the education sector, the average gross wage was 322,939 forints, and it was 220,964 in health and social services.

In January-July 2018, the average gross monthly wage stood at 324,743 forints and the average net monthly wage at 215,954 forints, both up 12.1 percent from the same period of last year.

Real wages in January-July were up 9.4 percent.

Commenting on the data, Finance Minister Mihály Varga called the January-July wage growth rate remarkable. He told public news channel M1 that the increase in wages would continue in the coming months.

Of the Visegrad Group countries, Hungary registered the second-highest wage growth rate over the first seven months of the year behind Poland, Varga said. The average gross monthly wage in Hungary is about level with the average wage in Slovakia, he added.

Varga welcomed that

the number of fostered workers has fallen by 35,000 during the period.

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Memorandum of Understanding on Carpathian Region Strategy signed in Krynica

economy forum cooperation

Hungary, Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia have signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing and drafting the Carpathian Region Strategy, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said at the Krynica Economic Forum in Poland on Wednesday.

Two years of work have gone into shaping the strategy which could support progress in the region by developing competitiveness, environmental efficiency, transport and digital infrastructure, and institutional cooperation, Varga said.

The Czech Republic, Romania, Moldova and Serbia will join the initiative later, he added.

It is hoped that goals in the strategy may be achieved by drawing on national, European Union, institutional or private funding, the minister said.

Featured image: MTI/EPA

Orbán’s cabinet: Sargentini report attempt to ‘punish’ Hungary for independent migration policy

migration - Hungary border fence army

The Sargentini report “is an attempt to punish Hungary” for its independent and sovereign migration policy, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office has said.

Whereas the report covers various other topics, these all concern issues that have already been concluded with agreements between Hungary and the European Commission, Gergely Gulyás told commercial Inforadio in an interview broadcast late on Tuesday.

He said the remaining issue was migration policy and what, in the eyes of Sargentini, “the Hungarian government is doing wrong”.

Hungary is “protecting the European Union’s external borders and making it clear that it is up to the citizens of every country to decide with whom they want to live,” he added.

Every time Hungary is on the agenda at the European Parliament it concerns an “attack on Hungary”, Gulyás said, adding that it was right that Hungary should be represented and defended at the highest level, referring to the fact that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will participate in the upcoming EP debate on the Sargentini report.

Commenting on next year’s EP elections, he said migration would be the hot issue. He said that ever since 1979, when direct voting was introduced in the EU, this would be the first time that voters actually choose on the basis of a common European issue rather domestic political ones.

Gulyás said the campaign debate for and against migration would be “crucially important”. Hungary was the first country to prove that land borders can be protected, and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini now wants to show that the sea borders can also be protected, he added.

He said that French President Emmanuel Macron was on the side of migrants and was the prime representative of left-liberal politics in Europe.

It added it was more and more likely that Macron would join the Liberals in the European Parliament. The Hungarian government, for its part, wants to ensure that the European People’s Party remains the biggest political force in the EP, he said.

Asked about the V4 cooperation, Gulyás said that over the past 3-4 years the Visegrád Four countries had coordinated their political actions more successfully than at any time since the region’s transition to democracy three decades ago.

Even if there are some disputes between them — mainly concerning ethnic minorities — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia agree on an overwhelming majority of issues, he said, adding that the gaps between their positions had further narrowed in light of the EU’s draft financial framework.

The draft, he insisted, sought to “punish” central European countries for meeting their EU obligations in economic policy and producing considerable economic growth, he said, explaining that up to now cohesion policy was based on the standard of living rather than on the rate of economic growth. The draft budget, however, would take growth as the basis of access to cohesion funds and “thus help the rich to the detriment of the poor”, Gulyás said.

Featured image: Gergely Botár/kormany.hu

Hungary backs IBRD capital increase

Daily News Hungary economy

Finance Minister Mihály Varga assured Franciscus Godts, Executive Director at the Board of the World Bank Group, of Hungary’s support for a capital increase for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in a meeting on Monday.

The World Bank Group approved the capital raises for the IBRD and the IFC this past spring, but talks on the raises are still ongoing in the group’s member states, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The capital increases require the support of 80 percent of the group’s shareholders.

Hungary’s approval of the capital increases, the amendment of the IBRD’s Articles of Agreement and the subscription of shares requires the consent of parliament, the statement said.

The funding needed for the capital increase has been earmarked in the 2019 budget, they added.

Varga and Godts also discussed the IFC’s new institutional strategy. The minister noted that the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have asked the IFC to assign an expert to central Europe who is well versed in the region and can help with business development in the Visegrad Group countries.

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Orbán meets Czech PM Babis in Budapest

August 20 celebration

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has voiced support for a proposal concerning migration presented by Andrej Babis, his Czech counterpart, during talks in Budapest late on Friday.

The Czech proposal is “very reasonable” and the Hungarian government is “happy to support it”, Orbán said in a statement recorded after the meeting.

Parties at the talks agreed on the necessity to strengthen economic relations, with special regard to cooperation in the defence industry, Orbán said.

Orbán welcomed that he had the opportunity to discuss European Union issues with a “non-traditional” politician, and insisted that “we need fresh ideas” and expressed support for the Czech Republic‘s position on handling the migration crisis.

The talks touched upon the EU’s next budget, and Orbán said that

he and Babis had identified a number of areas where the European Commission’s proposal could be improved.

Orbán also announced that he would visit the Czech Republic at the invitation of Babis, in the second half of October.

Answering a question concerning Orbán’s recent talks in Italy, Orbán stressed the importance of Italy from the European perspective, and said that just as his government had proven that illegal migration could be stopped on land, the community was looking to Italy to do the same at sea. He also pointed out that the positions of Italy and that of the Visegrad countries concerning migration were very close and said that “we have to help each other”.

In his answer to another question, Orbán said that

two camps were being formed before next year’s European Parliamentary elections, one “in favour of continuing the pro-migration policy” led by French President Emmanuel Macron, while the other camp, including Hungary, seeks to “stand the floor” and stop illegal migration.

He also added that recent, critical remarks concerning his government’s policies were rooted “in the clear-cut fact that the campaign for the European elections has already started”.

Photo: MTI

Regional farm ministers press for equal protection of agribusinesses, regardless of size

Hungary wheat agriculture

The farm ministers of the Visegrad Group — Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia — together with their counterparts from Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania issued a joint declaration urging equal treatment for small as well as large agribusinesses in a draft directive of the European Commission at a meeting in Nitra, Slovakia, on Wednesday.

The EC directive would prohibit buyers of farm products from making unilateral or retroactive changes to their contracts with suppliers, and from canceling orders for perishables at the last minute, the press office of Hungary’s farm ministry said.

The directive, drafted thanks to the work of the Visegrad Group over the past several years, is a “step in the right direction” but provides limited protection to small and mid-sized agribusinesses, it added.

As we wrote a few days ago, Hungary’s agriculture has capacity to supply wheat of milling quality to twenty million people, twice the population of the country, read more HERE.

Photo: MTI

Foreign minister: A strong Visegrád voice is also in the EU’s interests

“The appearance of a ‘strong Visegrád voice’ in the debate on the future of Europe is also in the interests of the EU”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said.

At the official opening of the Századvég Summer University, the Minister stressed: “We must make our voice heard in the debate on the future of Europe, particularly in the interests of making the EU competitive within the global economy, restoring the security of the European people, preserving our Christian culture and European identity, engaging in a fair and open debate on the next seven-year budget, protecting European democracy and enabling the enlargement of the European Union”.

With relation to competitiveness, Mr. Szijjártó said plans to introduce tax harmonisation in the European Union are unacceptable.

On the subject of security, he stressed that the shift in the position of Western Europe must also appear in the form of action. Concerning European democracy, the Minister spoke about the fact that attempting to rapidly close the debate on important issues prior to the European Parliament elections is an anti-democratic approach.

“The EU is facing historic challenges of a fundamentally security nature”, the Foreign Minister said. “At the same time, values that were previous regarded as unshakeable are currently under attack in Europe, values that used to represent the foundations of the European social and economic system”, he explained.

Mr. Szijjártó said that in his opinion an extremely lively debate has developed on the future of Europe, and although the existence of the debate itself is not bad news, the fact that the debate came almost immediately to rest on emotional foundations and everyone who does not speak according to the expectations of the European mainstream is stigmatised is bad news.

“This calls into question whether the debate can in fact have a rational conclusion”, he added.

The Minister declared that the V4 has represented the voice of common sense throughout this debate and will continue to do so in future and make their voice heard firmly in the debate.

Central Europe has become the engine of EU growth and this region is the safest in the European Union, “but we were not always courageous enough to declare this in recent years”, he noted.

In the Minister’s opinion “the figures and results are on our side” and the countries of the V4 have proven on numerous occasions that their sometimes controversial policies serve the interests of the people who live here and all Europeans.

In his speech, President of the Századvég Foundation Zsolt Barthel-Rúzsa stressed that the countries of the Visegrád Group can be proud of the fact that they have a past, because this means there are stable foundations on which to continue building cooperation.

As he explained, the V4 community is made strong by an approach that concentrates on what binds it together instead of what separates them. “Even more important, however, is the fact that our governments care about what people think with relation to the future, politics and Europe, and they act accordingly”, he stated.

Speaking earlier on Hungarian M1 television, Mr. Barthel-Rúzsa said that cooperation between the four countries of the Visegrád Group is the topic of the Foundation’s summer university, which begins on Monday, and the participants will have the opportunity to attend lectures on the role of the V4, migration and the future of Europe, and also about how the Czech republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia will be able to realise even closer cooperation in future.

Featured image: MTI

Hungarian utility and healthcare prices rise due to inflation

Hungary takes the second worst place since 2000 in the EU’s inflation rates even though that, in the past few years, short-term inflation statistics have improved in the country. Utility and healthcare prices have increased significantly and are most affected by inflation, says Napi.hu.

Where is Hungary situated in European economic rates?

According to Eurostat rates, inflation has been the second highest since the turn of the century between EU member states. With regards to economic growth, the V4 countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland) have been ahead of us since last year. In general, the report reveals large differences between Eastern and Western European states’ economic performance, as inflation rates are significantly higher in the East. While prices have doubled in Hungary since 2000 with an inflation rate of 98%, this is clearly far from the countries with the best economic indicators in the EU: Germany and Sweden (28.6% and 29.1%).

Source: Eurostat, Harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) – Total.

Which areas are most affected by this change in inflation?

Concerning Hungary, the highest increases could be observed in healthcare (+156.8% between 2000-2017) and utility prices („housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels”) with more than 139% increase.

MNB’s latest inflation report raises attention to the presumably higher inflation in 2018 and 2019. Nevertheless, short-term inflation indicators can vary depending on the monetary environment and even a more rigid, austerity policy lately implemented by the European Central Bank. It is also beneficial that core inflation rates have not yet started to increase.

Another significant economic indicator is GDP:

Following the economic crisis, Hungarian GDP numbers have exceeded the EU average performance since 2012 with a 4.4% economic increase in the first quarter this year.

In the V4 group, it is only Poland that overstepped our increase with the second best rates in the EU (with about 5% yearly increase). Hungary’s first quarterly growth puts us into the 4th place Europe-wide.

Unemployment rates reflect a mixed picture: while in North-Eastern Hungary, rates fall within 5.8-9.5%, the central regions show lower numbers.

However, Hungary’s place in the ever more rigid world economic environment remains questionable as low inflation rates are coming to an end together with the era of easy, fast growth. It is to be seen how V4 countries cope with these challenges of austerity in the future.

Merkel, Orbán meet in Berlin – UPDATE

Hungary is taking a big burden off Germany’s shoulders by preventing anyone who enters Hungary from sidestepping the law, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told a press conference held jointly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel after talks in Berlin on Thursday.

Orbán: Hungary helps Germany by stopping illegal migration

Orbán said Hungary had built a fence along its southern border to “regain control over its own territory”.

He said a legal dispute was emerging around claims that the first point of entry for migrants to the EU was not Hungary but Greece, adding Hungary’s standpoint is that Germany should send migrants back to Greece. “We’re ready for that long-term dispute,” he said.

He said Hungary felt wronged to be accused of lacking a sense of solidarity when it went to great lengths to protect the EU’s southern border. Fully 8,000 armed people protect the southern border 24 hours a day.

Migrants would immediately make their way to Germany otherwise,

he added. Every day, 4,000-5,000 migrants would arrive in Germany were there no effective border controls, Orbán said, adding that this amounted to Hungarian solidarity.

“Our borders will remain protected in the future, too.”

Orbán said Hungary “sees the world differently” from Germany but strives for tight cooperation with it. Differences in opinion cannot prevent the two countries from finding new opportunities for cooperation, he added.

“This is a difference in approach”, he said, adding, however, that this difference would not hinder cooperation.

As regards bilateral economic relations, Orbán said Hungary was building a labour-based economy with a view to reaching full employment. Hungary’s cooperation with Germany is especially helpful towards achieving this goal, he added.

Bilateral investment and trade figures are “fantastic”, he said, adding that he and Merkel had discussed how to keep up this level of cooperation. Hungary and Germany will set up a working group with a view to intensifying bilateral cooperation in the area of innovation and technology, he said.

Trade turnover between the Visegrad Group (V4) countries and Germany is 50 percent more than Germany’s trade volume with France,

Orbán said. “There’s a new reality unfolding before our eyes,” he said, arguing that the future of Europe’s economic growth lay in German-V4 cooperation.

He said the two countries were in full agreement that both were interested in imposing the lowest possible tariffs.

On the topic of defence policy, Orbán noted that Hungary was among the first member states to recommend the implementation of a joint European defence policy and the creation of a joint EU defence force. Hungary wants to modernise its military “on a European basis”, and is ready to cooperate with Germany in this respect, he added.

In response to a question, the prime minister said a central European NATO command headquarters would be set up with German help, adding that Hungary was also in talks with other member states about its establishment.

Hungary has signed framework agreements with German companies in connection with the modernisation of its defence forces. Cooperation between the two countries will be continuous,

Orbán said.

On another subject, the prime minister noted that Hungary is the only non-German-speaking country which provides German-language education from kindergarten all the way to university. Hungary has a number of ethnic German kindergartens and schools, as well as German-language universities, he noted. The influence of these universities should grow and their activities should be expanded, Orbán added.

The prime minister thanked Germany for its cooperation and its decades-old friendship.

Photo: MTI

Merkel: Germany-Hungary economic cooperation ‘excellent’

Cooperation between Germany and Hungary is “excellent” and Hungary is an attractive destination for investors, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

At a joint conference with Orbán after the talks, Merkel said cooperation should be further strengthened when it comes to the European economy facing the great challenges such as digitalisation, alternative modes of transport and artificial intelligence.

Photo: MTI

She noted that

Germany and Hungary saw eye to eye in rejecting protectionist economic policies.

Merkel also said that the two countries acted in close cooperation in defence policy and the creation of a shared “strategic culture”, and complementing NATO with the European intervention initiative.

Photo: MTI

Hungary doesn’t want to take back migrants, says Orbán in Berlin

Foreign minister: Complete protection of EU borders only possible if hot spots located outside bloc

The European Union’s external borders can only be protected completely if migrant reception and collection centers known as hot spots are located outside of the bloc, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told public television on Tuesday.

Szijjártó said that Hungary cautiously welcomed the decision to abandon mandatory migrant quotas following the recent European Union summit, noting that the European Council had already once decided the scrap the quotas only for its decision to be overridden by EU interior ministers.

The decision to abandon mandatory migrant quotas is a “victory for the Visegrád countries”, he said, adding that it was a “significant achievement” for the Hungary-led V4 that EU member states would not have to take in migrants from planned hot spots.

Another achievement, he said, was that “the focus of EU politicians has shifted from mandatory quotas to protecting the borders”. Hungary, he added, had urged that shift for the past three years.

Szijjártó cautioned, at the same time, that border protection would not be complete unless the hot spots were set up outside the bloc.

Pro-migrant NGOs and human smuggling rings should not be the ones to decide “with whom we live”, he said.

Szijjártó also warned of a possible increase in migration pressure after Turkey quit an agreement with Greece under which it took back migrants.

Hungary’s priority, he said, was for the line of defence “to be as far south as possible”.

He noted that Hungary has offered Montenegro 25km of fencing to reinforce the Montenegro-Albania border. He also noted that Hungarian police carry out patrols in Macedonia.

Featured image: MTI

Hungary to increase military presence in crisis zones

Hungary will increase its military contribution to missions in countries “crucial in terms of migration and terrorism”, István Szabó, state secretary of defence, told military attaches at their annual meeting on Tuesday.

Szabó noted the heightened threat of terrorism across the world and drew a link to “illegal mass migration”. He also warned of increasing religious radicalism.

No improvement in the crisis zones where most migrants come from is discernable, he said.

Migration pressure on Hungary, however, has eased due to government measures, the state secretary added.

“It is easy to verify that Hungary has become one of the safest countries in the world,” he said.

Concerning international military cooperation, Szabó noted the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy France, and Austria as Hungary’s most important partners. He also noted opportunities in military technology cooperation with Sweden. He added that regional cooperation with the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, the three other Visegrád countries, “has never been as strong as today”.

Featured image: MTI

V4 notched up big success at the EU summit, says Hungarian FM

Under the prime minister of Hungary’s leadership, the Visegrad Group has notched up a big success with the resolution adopted at the European Union summit which deals with the problems of migration in a meaningful framework, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

In the past three years, the debate on migration revolved in a “hypocritical and dogmatic” way around the question of which EU member states, and the extent to which, they should give up their own sovereignty, Szijjártó told public radio.

“The causes of migration have not disappeared at all,” he said, adding that more and more people are arriving in the Western Balkans with the help of NGOs in cooperation with smugglers. Around 30-35 million people in North Africa and the Middle East can decide at any time to make their way to Europe, he said.

Szijjártó said it was a testament to the success of V4 diplomacy that European views on how to handle migration had shifted towards the positions of central Europe.

He said international organisations with the backing of US billionaire George Soros would do everything in their power to put Europe into a post-Christian, post-nation period.

“The most important task is to protect Hungary, central Europe and, if possible, the whole of Europe,” the minister said.

Hungary, he added, is not an immigrant country. Europe should stick to its heritage and traditions that have made it the strongest of continents, Szijjártó said.

Meanwhile, he said Visegrad cooperation was becoming more stable, closer and stronger.

Szijjártó said that attacks by international forces had intensified after the European Council adopted a different position to that of “NGOs that want to replace the European population”. Hungary must cooperate effectively within the V4 and other countries with similar positions, he said.

He pointed out that the Austrian chancellor had been in Budapest the week before the EU summit.

Szijjártó said

an imminent meeting between Viktor Orbán, the prime minister, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be of “exceptional significance”.

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He noted that Germany is Hungary’s biggest economic partner. The performance of Hungary’s economy is fundamentally determined by its ties to Germany, he said, adding that the European political situation related to migration increased the significance of this kind of meeting, Szijjártó said.

Photo: MTI