“Hungary’s peace mission is causing huge frustration across Europe,” Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in an interview published by the Swiss weekly Weltwoche on Wednesday.
Europe’s politicians are “jealous” of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, since “it has become very clear that our prime minister is the only one in Europe that can reach such players of global politics and security” as the presidents of Russia, China, Türkiye, or former US president Donald Trump, Szijjártósaid.
Busy July for PM Orbán:
Photo: FB/Orbán
Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia on 5 July 2024. Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
Viktor Orbán and Volodimir Zelensky on 2 July 2024. Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Fischer Zoltán
Photo: FB/Orbán
“European politicians are also frustrated because they are terrified … of it becoming obvious to everybody that they have not only pursued an ill-advised and unsuccessful strategy in terms of the war, but that strategy has also caused huge damage to Europe,” he said.
Leaders of the EU “have made it clear that Hungary is not authorised to represent the EU in those talks”, Szijjártó said, but stressed that Orban “did not speak in the name of the EU … obviously, we are fully aware that the rotating presidency has nothing to do with a diplomatic representation of the EU”.
Orban made his foreign visits “in his own role, because the European Union is not currently considered an important player in world politics”, the minister said. Orban, on the other hand, is “one of the prime ministers having served the longest time in his post in Europe, he has broad credibility in the world, and he is revered for his vision of the future and for the courage to promote that vision”, Szijjártó added.
Hungarian foreign minister waiting for Trump
Concerning a decision by Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, to move a planned informal meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers from Budapest to Brussels, Szijjártó said it was “childish revenge”, adding that “ministers of 13 EU members including the largest countries” had supported that the meeting should be held in Budapest.
Concerning the war in Ukraine, Szijjártó said Russia was “gaining more ground by the day” and “it is not a pressing issue for them to find any solution”. “Ukraine is asking for more and more support … they are getting it because the US has a Democrat administration and … we cannot expect either of the belligerents to come up with a solution, which means that the solution must come from the outside,” he said. “There are three actors: the US, China, and still, Europe … but Europe is lagging behind the US, copying the American strategy and acting in this sense as an assistant to the US, without a voice of its own … while China is on the side of peace,” he said, noting the peace plan the Chinese and Brazilian foreign ministers had tabled. “The incumbent US government is obviously pro-war; if there is a change [in the US], at least two out of the three great powers will support peace and that could redraw the picture completely,” Szijjártó said. Trump’sreturn to power could “lend new momentum” to those changes, Szijjártó insisted.
What remains most important amid fresh developments in the US presidential race is that Donald Trump is a beacon of hope for peace in the world, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said on Tuesday.
Trump a beacon of hope?
Photo: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter
Szijjártó said that if the former president was re-elected, then there would be “a huge chance of bringing peace to the world, including Europe … and central Europe, too”.
According to a ministry statement, he said the war on the Russian-Ukrainian front was “more and more brutal”, and only an external actor may bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, making it clear to them that “no solution lies on the battlefield”.
“Only Donald Trump has such a chance,” he said, adding that the Republican presidential candidate would hopefully seize it at the earliest possible opportunity.
Meanwhile, Szijjártó said the fact that the EU’s foreign policy chief had changed the venue of the bloc’s informal foreign affairs council to Brussels from Budapest was “not of great importance”. “It didn’t matter to me then, and it doesn’t matter now,” he said.
He insisted that those in favour of holding the meeting in Budapest outweighed those against.
Szijjártó said that the recent meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council had been characterised by “unbelievable hysteria”, and he referred to “pro-war politicians venting their frustration” at Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “peace mission”.
He noted that Slovakia “despite the pressure, stood by Hungary openly”. The minister said there had been “clear cooperation between two patriotic governments” who worked together “in a fraternal way” despite not being politically aligned “according to the old divides”, he added.
Szijjártó: IFRC expands Budapest office
The expanded Budapest office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was inaugurated on Tuesday, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said, adding that this was set to further bolster the organisation’s activities.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Szijjártó noted that the IFRC had chosen Budapest as the location for its global service centre eight years ago and this was the second expansion of the office since then.
Currently, there are 118 Hungarian and 110 foreign citizens working at the Budapest IFRC office, he said, adding that the expansion was set to increase staff to up to 280.
Szijjártó said it was important to ensure the most favourable operating conditions possible, which could help the organisation carry out its duties at the highest possible level. The government, he added, had assured the IFRC of its continued support, noting the tax exemptions for its staff members, which parliament will have to approve in the autumn.
Meanwhile, Szijjártó said mankind had entered “an era of dangers”, with armed conflicts going on in more than 30 places in the world.
Concerning the war in Ukraine, the minister said around 1,500 schools and kindergartens have welcomed Ukrainian refugee children. Refugees, he added, had equal access to health care, and the government was also supporting them in finding jobs.
On another subject, Szijjártó praised the work of the Hungary Helps agency which has so far carried out 360 humanitarian projects worth a combined 120 million US dollars across 64 countries.
He said the organisation’s aim was to ensure that Christian and other communities could survive where they have been living for centuries instead of being forced to leave their homeland.
He said that as a country with a thousand years of Christian statehood behind it, Hungary felt a special responsibility for Christian communities around the world.
“We believe that one’s right to live in one’s home in safe and peaceful conditions is one of the most important aspects of human rights,” he said. “The international community’s most important goal should be to restore these fundamental rights, and I think the IFRC plays a leading role in this.”
Szijjártó noted that Hungary has been a member of the IFRC since 1921.
BC GEN Hungary, the local unit of South Korea’s Bumchun, is investing 21 billion forints to triple battery terminal capacity at its base in Salgótarján, in north-eastern Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, announced on Tuesday.
South Korea’s Bumchun in Hungary
The investment creating 400 jobs is receiving state support of 3.75 billion forints, Szijjártó said.
He noted that Hungary is home to manufacturing bases of all three big premium German car makers, while five of the world’s ten biggest battery makers are located in the country.
Hungary has become a “meeting point” for investments from the East and the West that will ensure the country is “among the frontrunners” of the electromobility transition, he added.
Hungary faced “aggressive, coordinated pro-war hysteria, in many cases completely neglecting reality” at the European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting because of its peace mission, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said on Monday.
The ministry cited Szijjártó telling a press conference that the EU’s Ukraine strategy had failed in the past two and a half years, arguing that peace was increasingly farther away, and the sanctions were hurting the continent’s economy more and more.
“Of course we can bury our head in the sand, as some of my fellow European politicians have done, and interpret the truth as Kremlin propaganda,” he said.
Instead, he called for a changed approach and a peace strategy, saying that diplomatic channels must be reopened for the sake of success.
Szijjártó said that last week the Swiss and Russian foreign ministers met, the US and Russian defence ministers had talks by phone and the Ukrainian president held talks with Donald Trump.
“So everybody has started using diplomatic channels, it is only here in Brussels and in European capitals that they call this illegitimate, something that must not be done, and whoever argues for diplomatic solutions is labelled pro-Russian”, he said.
Szijjártó said he had pointed out the “lies”, for instance the fact that during its peace mission Hungary never said it acted representing the EU and nobody tried to make such an impression.
After the first meetings of the peace mission, three proposals were presented: the reopening of diplomatic channels with Russia, political consultation with China and communications with a global South, he said. The latter had been discussed at every EU Council meeting and the importance of maintaining relations with China has also been voiced by many, he added.
“If we consider how many European leaders met the Chinese president in the recent past and how many more will meet him in the near future, it is a long list,” he said.
Szijjártó said there were some differences of opinion in terms of the reopening of diplomatic channels. However, he said this was a legitimate matter for debate and refusing the possibility of debate was undemocratic.
He also said that
“a fantastic act of revenge has been devised in Brussels” which involved rendering the informal foreign ministers’ meeting planned for late August in Budapest impossible. “It is completely childish,” he added.
It is the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that must decide if a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council is held in a formal or informal framework, and it is an institutionalised custom that in the latter case it is held in the member state holding the rotating presidency, he said.
“We are prepared for it. If the High Representative for Foreign Affairs calls the meeting to Budapest, we will be pleased to welcome the foreign minister colleagues with the proper Hungarian hospitality,” he said. “And if the High Representative decides that he does not want to call the meeting in Budapest but in Brussels, then I will come and then the meeting will be held in Brussels.”
He said several people had argued for the meeting to be held in Budapest but several said they would be unwilling to attend. There was even a proposal for the meeting to be held in Ukraine, which Szijjártó said would need unanimous support and the Hungarian government will not support it.
He said it was only Slovakia that had clearly stood up in support of Hungary. “The Slovak deputy foreign minister who was here clearly said that they had no objection and criticism against the Hungarian foreign minister’s peace mission,” he added. Read details HERE: Hungary initiates procedure against Ukraine, but not alone
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó expects “a political volley fire” at a meeting of his European Union counterparts in Brussels on Monday.
Ahead of the meeting, Szijjártó said on Facebook that “the foreign affairs bureaucracy in Brussels and the leaders of some EU countries have been sharpening their tongues on our peace mission out of their frustration and jealousy and because their ill-advised strategy has been revealed” over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s meeting the presidents of Russia and China, as well as former US President Donald Trump.
Szijjártó noted that since those talks were held the Swiss foreign minister had met his Russian counterpart, the US and Russian defence ministers had also held talks, while Trump had also spoken with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader.
“Up with the armor and get ready for a (political) volley fire …off we go to Brussels, where my foreign minister colleagues are waiting, [in the] EU Foreign Affairs Council,”
he said.
As we wrote two days before, Sky-high fuel prices and power outages may come in Hungary after Ukraine ban on Russian oil import, details HERE.
Hungary will provide Georgia with all support to protect its sovereignty and accelerate that country’s European Union integration, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with his Georgian counterpart, Ilia Darchiashvili, in Budapest on Friday.
The Hungarian government will continue to promote Georgia’s EU integration “with all its might” and will do everything to forward the process during Hungary’s current EU presidency, the foreign ministry quoted Szijjártóas saying.
Fast developing countries such as Georgia “could lend a great momentum to the European Union, whose competitiveness has significantly decreased recently, therefore it is also in the EU’s fundamental interest that Georgia should join,” Szijjártó told a joint press conference held with his counterpart.
The minister highlighted the progress in bilateral ties, noting that the turnover of bilateral trade had increased by 2.5 times since 2010, and Hungary’s Wizz Air had become an air traffic market leader in Georgia.
Szijjártó noted that they signed an agreement on the reciprocal protection of investments.
Caucasian-central European success story on the horizon
On another subject, Szijjártó said Georgia could be crucial for improving Europe’s energy security, diversification of energy sources and green transition. Hungary and Romania, in cooperation with Azerbaijan and Georgia have made great progress in facilitating the imports of green energy from the latter two countries, Szijjártó said. The cooperation is aimed at building “the longest submarine electric power line in the world”, Szijjártó said, adding that a feasibility study was being prepared while the four countries were about to set up a joint venture for the purpose. “All conditions are in place for a great, Caucasian-central European success story,” he said.
He added that “Europe should be as happy as a lark” with Georgia’s endeavour to join and “should do all to accelerate that process … but instead the European liberal mainstream, the pro-war politicians and Brussels bureaucrats are seeking to thwart Georgia’s European integration.” He suggested it was happening because “Georgia has a patriotic government … that fights for their own national interests and … against foreign influence.” He added that the Georgian government was working to protect families and a traditional family model, and adopted a law to the latter end. “That is why Brussels has imposed political and financial punishments, freezing funds earlier pledged to Georgia and hindering integration talks with every possible means,” he added.
“We know this all too well since this is exactly what the Brussels elite has been doing to us,” Szijjártó said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s “manoeuvring” to “undermine” the planned programmes of the Hungarian EU presidency is “regrettable”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Friday.
Answering questions from journalists, Szijjártó said he had not received a letter from Borrell inviting him to a Foreign Affairs Council meeting on Aug 28-29, the same dates for which the Hungarian presidency has scheduled an informal meeting in Budapest.
“I heard that the high representative tried to do some manoeuvring,” Szijjártó said. “I’m not surprised, I followed his career as high representative over the last five years which was one of the most unsuccessful period of European foreign policy. And if he had sent such a letter, I would have probably sent him back a sandbox shovel, because this whole ‘I’m gathering all my friends together or you are’ is at the maturity level of a kindergartener.”
“So for my part, I am, of course, looking forward to the meeting with my fellow foreign ministers at Gymnich with pleasure,” Szijjártó said. “If the meeting is held elsewhere then it’ll be held elsewhere.”
He said the EU today had “much bigger problems” to deal with, calling it “more regrettable than outrageous” that this was the foreign policy chief’s top priority when there was a war happening on the continent and the bloc’s competitiveness and weight in foreign policy had “taken a dramatic hit”.
“Fortunately, Josep Borrell is leaving his post soon, and this could provide hope that the European Union’s slide in importance on foreign policy can be stopped,” he said. “Though I must tell you that being in my tenth year as foreign minister, I have worked with three EU foreign policy high representatives, and each time one’s term expired I was sure that it couldn’t get worse and I was always wrong.”
Proof of Russian-American cooperation
Asked about the possibility of increased American participation in the upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, Szijjártó said it was up to Rosatom, the Russian main contractor on the project, to select is sub-contractors, and there already are American, French and German partners working on the project, with their participation worth hundreds of millions or even a billion euros.
He said the fact that US-Russian trade turnover in May was up 50 percent compared with April was proof of “this sort of Russian-American cooperation”. “And one of the biggest contributing factor to this is the deliveries of Russian uranium to the United States,” he added.
“So if Russia is the US’ top uranium supplier then I don’t see what the outrage is about,” Szijjártó said. “And, of course, we can say that it’ll be banned from August or from January, but the war has been going on for two and a half years now. We’ve been hearing for two and a half years now that we’re feeding the Russian war machine by buying natural gas and oil from Russia. So then what were the US uranium imports over the last two and a half years?”
Commenting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent remarks, Szijjártó said thousands were dying each day in Hungary’s neighbouring country, tens of thousands were fleeing, and border guards were having to hold back those trying to leave the country.
“We can all see the videos of the way the Ukrainians are conscripting people,” he said. “It’s very interesting that the West isn’t outraged by this and that NGOs aren’t making an issue out of it. It’s very interesting that those who usually talk about human rights are silent right now.”
“And then here we are, the ones who are willing and brave enough to talk about the need to make peace, and then Ukraine’s president talks about the Hungarian prime minister in such an appalling way,” he said.
“I have a very hard time accepting and processing this and stopping myself from using coarse expressions,” the minister said. “But we’re going to continue this peace mission, because if there won’t be peace soon . even more brutal things can happen on the frontline, the threat of escalation will be even higher than before . and there’ll be a threat of all of Europe going up in flames.”
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Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó discussed the war in Ukraine and bilateral relations with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York on Tuesday. According to a ministry statement, Szijjártó told reporters after the meeting that Hungary wanted peace because it had been living in the shadow of the war for two and a half years now and was directly impacted by the conflict’s negative effects.
Szijjártó met Lavrov in New York again
Szijjártó said the West’s strategy had “failed”, arguing that “regardless of the weapons deliveries, regardless of the sanctions”, the situation on the battlefield had not gone the way the Europeans and the Americans had hoped.
“So if this strategy has failed then we need a new strategy,” he said. “With no solution on the battlefield, the solution must come from the negotiating table.”
This, he said, required diplomatic channels, without which “it will be very, very complicated to reach any kind of solution.”
Photo: FB/Szijjártó
Meanwhile, Szijjártósaid he and Lavrov had also touched on bilateral issues, including the upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant. He said he is scheduled to discuss the matter with Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom, in Istanbul on Wednesday, because “there is a very interesting development”.
He noted that though Rosatom is the main contractor on the upgrade, there are also American, German and French companies working on the project, which he said “offers hope” for an eventual return to “normality” in international relations.
Joint work in nuclear projects
“Because if American, German, French and Russian companies can work together on a nuclear project, then they might be able to work together on another project as well in the future,” he added.
Paks II NPP project. Source: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter
Turning to the issue of oil and gas supply, Szijjártó said gas deliveries were running smoothly, but Lukoil was currently not delivering oil to Hungary via Ukraine, and a legal solution was being sought in an effort to restart deliveries.
He said they also discussed Hungarian higher-education scholarships for Russian students, and they have also scheduled the next meeting of the Hungarian-Russian joint economic committee for Sept 20, which will also include an economic forum.
Szijjártó said the aim was to continue developing cooperation between the two countries in areas not affected by sanctions, as several Hungarian companies were successful on the Russian market in sectors like agriculture and the food and pharmaceutical industries.
Szijjártó: ‘Civilised East-West cooperation’ essential to meeting sustainable development goals
Civilised East-West cooperation is essential to achieving UN sustainable development and environmental protection goals, Szijjártó said in New York. UN climate protection goals set a few years ago will affect the future of the entire planet, the ministry cited Szijjarto telling a high-level political forum on sustainable development at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.
PM Orbán in Moscow. Photo: FB/Orbán
“Last year was the warmest year ever, and the past decade was the warmest ever decade … so it clearly shows that environmental protection must be an important issue in the long term,” he said.
“If the major countries in world politics do not talk to each other, if they cut the diplomatic channels, if they are unable to maintained civilised cooperation, then we cannot achieve results in matters that are important for the future of the entire planet,” he added. Szijjarto said that achieving the UN sustainable development goals and protecting the environment would be impossible globally if the major states continued to refuse to talk to each other.
Nuclear energy reliable and sustainable
“Without a civilised East-West cooperation, it is impossible to achieve results in important matters affecting the future of the planet. In a cold war atmosphere it will be impossible to fulfil the environmental protection and sustainable development goals,” he said.
He added that Hungary showed an encouraging example, citing the expansion project of the Paks nuclear power station, which, he said, proved that despite all ideological attacks, nuclear energy could be used to produce a large volume of electricity in a reliable and sustainable way.
He noted that the general contractor for the project is Russian, but American, German and French subcontractors are also involved. Such cooperation “shows common sense prevailing over political prejudice and ideological motivations”, he added.
“There is still a chance for international cooperation based on common sense, even among those that for the time being refuse to even talk to each other in politics,” he said.
Stigmatising country for keeping diplomatic channels open ‘unacceptable’, says minister
Szijjártó said it was “unacceptable” that a country should be stigmatised in the transatlantic community for holding talks in the interest of peace and arguing in support of keeping diplomatic channels open. The ministry cited Szijjártó as saying in New York that the current Russian presidency of the UN Security Council had convened a meeting on the global security situation, and he would address the meeting on behalf of Hungary which has been living in the shadow of the war in Ukraine for two and a half years.
He said thousands of people were dying in the neighbouring country and there was a threat of the danger of destruction, plus the conflict carried a long-term risk for the reformation of blocs in the world and the return of the Cold War era. Hungary, he added, had already lost out on such a situation once and did not want to get in the same situation again.
“I have been a foreign minister for nearly ten years and during these ten years attended numerous EU meetings where we discussed wars and armed conflicts taking place in various parts of the world, usually far away from Europe, and every time the European Union, European counterparts, the Brussels bureaucrats, and the high representative for foreign affairs stated in an arrogant and scornful manner that everyone must be called on to restore peace, lay down their arms, and everyone must be called on to find a peaceful solution to the war conflict,” he said.
Currently, however, in the case of the war in Ukraine, “the EU, the European bureaucrats and leaders argue for the direct opposite”, he said.
“Not only do they not want peace talks, not only do they continually sharpen the conflict and not only do they not consider escalation a danger, but when someone talks about peace and calls for talks, they immediately brand them ‘a Putin puppet, a spy of the Russians, a Kremlin’s propagandist, a Trojan horse’, etc.,” Szijjártó said.
He also lamented that they questioned the legitimacy of using diplomatic channels, which he said was unacceptable.
“It is unacceptable in the 21st century that someone should be stigmatised in Europe, America and the transatlantic community for arguing in support of keeping a given country’s diplomatic channels open … because a given country pursues diplomatic talks in the interest of peace,” he said.
He also said that recent years had demonstrated that Europe was following the wrong path in terms of its leaders having practically given up on the possibility of an independent strategy concerning the war and instead copying the American strategy, disregarding all considerations of their own.
Szijjártó said the continent had consequently found itself having to live in the shadow of the danger of war, with the risk of escalation being extremely high.
“It is high time for Europe to go its own way in terms of the war in Ukraine,” he said. “It is high time for Europe to have its strategy for peace, because the war is under way in Europe, with Europeans dying and a European country standing on the verge of destruction, so the madness must be stopped at this point.”
If the situation did not change, the war would get out of control and the risk of escalation would be “dramatically higher”, Szijjártó said.
The UN has been established exactly for the purpose of ensuring that everyone could talk to each other, even in case they were enemies, he added.
“In light of this, the European efforts to ban certain countries from maintaining talks with the Russians, the Belarusians and the Chinese under the auspices of the UN was totally unacceptable,” he said.
“Europe must return to the grounds of common sense and the path of diplomatic solutions; the legitimacy of the use of diplomatic channels must be given back, and diplomatic channels must be reopened with Russia, while simultaneously talks must be held with the Ukrainians because this could be the only solution to the war,” he said.
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Hungary and China agree on the need to multiply diplomatic efforts aimed at establishing peace, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in New York on Tuesday after a phone call with Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart, adding that the UN had a special responsibility in this. Attacks by pro-war European politicians will give further encouragement to the Hungarian government to continue its peace mission because Hungary wants peace instead of war and only peace can make Europe great again, Szijjártó said in New York.
The UN cannot hide
“The UN must finally speak out and finally take on a role,” Szijjártósaid, according to a ministry statement. “The UN cannot hide in the comfortable offices in New York, but must take a stand for reopening diplomatic communication channels.”
He noted that the UN had been established to allow for dialogue between those locked in conflict.
Szijjártó said the Hungarian government had recently “come under attack” from “all of Europe’s pro-war politicians”, but this “won’t deter us from continuing the peace mission”.
Mr Szijjártó on phone with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi:
He said the liberal mainstream was “pushing pro-war propaganda in the transatlantic bubble so hard”, that it gave people in Europe and America the impression that “this is the opinion of the whole world, when it is not”.
Majority wants peace
“The global majority wants peace and doesn’t at all understand why Europe doesn’t have a peace strategy . why it’s copying the American strategy,” Szijjártó said. “And the global majority is watching the efforts of the Hungarian peace mission with great sympathy, interest and appreciation.”
Szijjártó said he will meet his Russian counterpart, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations and the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Photo: FB
“This war going on in Ukraine has caused an enormous humanitarian disaster; we Hungarians can see that as well,” he said. “We’ve welcomed more than a million refugees, we see the separated families, we see the forced, unacceptable conscription operations that violate all human rights.”
Szijjártó warned against the danger of “the Western world ignoring the risk of escalation” when making decisions on weapons deliveries.
Meanwhile, the minister said he is also scheduled to hold talks on Tuesday with executives of American companies such as Kyndryl and Johnson and Johnson on potentially bolstering their presence in Hungary.
New scholarships
He said he will also hold talks with his Bahraini, Iranian and Cape Verdean counterparts.
He said Hungary and Bahrain will finalise an investment protection agreement, and said it was “good news” that a Hungarian company had provided the opportunity for cashless payment at the last Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix.
Meanwhile, Hungary and Cape Verde will sign an agreement on Hungary continuing to offer scholarships to 20 university students from Cape Verde each year, he said. Also, Hungarian companies will carry out investments with a view to improving the water supply as part of a 42 million euro tied-aid scheme, he added.
Szijjártó said he will also meet his Iranian counterpart and tell him that Hungary’s interests lay in the swiftest possible resolution to the Middle East crisis.
Szijjártó: Political attacks only give further encouragement to government’s continued peace mission
Attacks by pro-war European politicians will give further encouragement to the Hungarian government to continue its peace mission because Hungary wants peace instead of war and only peace can make Europe great again, Szijjártó said in New York.
The ministry cited Szijjártó as telling an open debate at the UN Security Council that Hungary had been living in the shadow of war for two and a half years and had been confronted with the direct consequences of the war, receiving more than one million refugees, facing war inflation and having to pay tremendously high energy prices.
“The war looks totally different from the neighbourhod compared to an ocean away,” he said.
Thousands of people were dying, a country was under destruction and there were long-term risks, such as the world being divided into blocs again, he said. Hungary knows that when there’s no chance for civilised cooperation between East and West “we lose on it”, he added.
He said that over the past ten years he had participated in a number of meetings in the EU where they discussed the issue of armed conflicts and wars far away from Europe, and the European position had always been to urge the parties of the given war to give up the battlefield solution, to sit around the negotiating table and look for a diplomatic solution.
Speakers about peade are not spies or Trojan horses
Now when there’s a war going on in Europe, not only is the position totally different but if someone uses the word “peace” and the word “negotiation” they get stigmatised immediately, being called a “spy or Trojan horse”, he said.
Szijjártó said it was “a very bad approach” that the legitimacy of diplomacy had been debated. He said diplomacy was not only talking to those “with whom you agree 100 percent”.
Diplomacy, he said, was about talking to everyone, even to those with whom one did not agree on major issues.
The last two and a half years had proven clearly that there was no battlefield solution to the war in Ukraine, so it was necessary to give back the legitimacy for diplomacy, the minister said.
“It is not only unacceptable but scandalous that a country is being stigmatised in the 21st century just because of arguing in favour of a diplomatic solution, just because of using channels of communication to talk to those with whom there might be a lack of common understanding on major issues,” he said.
Over-politisation of the UN is “unacceptable”
The UN has been established to give a platform for those who do not agree with each other, who are in a hostile relationship, who are at war with each other, to talk to each other, he added.
Szijjártó said the over-politisation of the UN was “unacceptable” and it was equally unacceptable to restrict countries from negotiating with whomever they want.
Attacks by European politicians representing a pro-war position, he said, would only give the Hungarian government further encouragement to continue its peace mission.
“We want peace instead of war. And only peace will make Europe great again,” he added.
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The chance for achieving peace is “far greater” with negotiations, re-opening diplomatic channels and dialogue than with weapons deliveries, sanctions and a strategy based on diplomatic refusal, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in a telephone interview with public radio broadcast on Sunday.
Szijjártósaid it was now “apparent to everybody” that the strategy of Europe and the United States over the past two and a half years didn’t work, even though Western politicians wouldn’t say so in public because that would be an admission of failure.
Sanctions were a “shot in the foot, then the knee, then the chest” for the European economy, while European and American weapons deliveries didn’t change the situation on the battlefield and didn’t bring the war any nearer to a close, he added.
Szijjártó said there was no solution on the battlefield and that resolution needed to be sought at the negotiating table and by opening diplomatic channels. He added that restoring the legitimacy of dialogue for peace was “extraordinarily important”.
Addressing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s talks in the past week, Szijjártó said no politician, especially a European one, could have done what the prime minister did. Besides Hungary’s prime minister, European politicians who can talk to everybody, who are welcomed everywhere and accepted as negotiating partners are no more, he added.
“Besides Viktor Orbán, there is nobody in Europe today in the position to hold talks with the presidents of China, Russia, Ukraine, Turkiye and the former, and many think future, president of the United States in the course of a week,” he said.
He added that there were three big players on the global political scene today that could achieve a ceasefire: China, the United States and the European Union.
At least two, but preferably three, must advocate for peace if there is a chance for the warring sides to move in the direction of peace rather than further escalation, he said.
He said the US presidential election could have a decisive impact on the matter as it would determine whether the US continued its “pro-war policy” or there was a chance to bring pro-peace policy to the forefront.
Commenting on the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Szijjártó pointed to attempts “to block pro-peace policies with the most brutal, most unimaginable” means, just as with the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico.
The government aims to make Hungary one of the leading countries in Europe in terms of research and development (R and D), Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday.
Hungary as an R and D leader?
Szijjártó told an event announcing a new investment project by audio-visual products manufacturer Lightware that achieving a change of dimension in the economy required an increase in R and D capacities.
“It is indeed a great achievement that a Hungarian-owned company launched by two university students can be a supplier for the likes os Google, Facebook, Netflix and Microsoft,” he said.
Lightware will expand its research and development hub in Budapest and set up a new engineering service centre in Szeged, in southern Hungary, creating 43 jobs for development engineers.
The government is contributing to the 9 billion forint (EUR 22.8m) development project with 2.4 billion forints of support, Szijjártó said.
He also said that last year’s total spending on R and D in Hungary was 1,032 billion forints, up 12 percent in one year.
Hungary and Türkiye are strengthening cooperation to make sure that “peace returns to the agenda of international organisations”, the foreign minister said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
According to a ministry statement, Péter Szijjártó told the NATO summit that Hungary and Türkiye “have had highest-level talks within the framework of the peace mission launched after [Hungary] took over the European presidency.”
He said Türkiye was the only country whose efforts to mediate between Ukraine and Russia had been successful, and the resulting agreement on grain helped stave off a food-supply crisis in several places around the world.
“In the coming period we’ll coordinate our work even more with Türkiye… to make sure that peace at least will be included on the agenda of international organisations,” he said.
He called it “problematic” that international organisations, including the NATOsummit, were “abuzz with discussions” on war. “Peace as an expression has become as good as illegitimate in those organisations.”
Those bringing up peace, he said, had been stigmatised and “labelled everything from Putin’s puppet to a Trojan horse, Russian agent and a propagandist of the Kremlin.”
Budapest and Ankara both have as much information on the war as possible
Erdogan, too, recently met Russian President Vladimir Putin, so “Budapest and Ankara both have as much information on the war as possible.”
Hungary and Türkiye agree on the importance of a peace conference with both warring side in attendance, Szijjártó said. The peace conference in Switzerland, he added, showed that “it’s impossible to find a solution if only one warring party is present”.
He said the past two and a half years showed that the Western strategy had failed. Compared with the situation at the start of the war, “we must say the situation is much worse now… Who knows how many dead, millions of refugees, a country largely in ruins, a deteriorating situation at the front, increasingly cruel and brutal war events, an mounting threat of escalation; that’s where we are right now,” he said.
“We need a strategy that opens communication channels and restores the legitimacy of diplomacy,” he added.
Speaking about a meeting with his Serbian counterpart, Szijjártó said the talks were important “because both countries want peace and they are constantly under political attack for that. Those attacks will not deter us from representing the cause of peace and national interests,” he said.
EU enlargement policy to lose credibility unless W Balkans accession speeded up
Western Balkans countries have been waiting for European Union membership for more than 15 years on average, the foreign minister said on Facebook late on Wednesday, adding that the bloc’s enlargement policy was at risk of losing all credibility if the accession process was not speeded up. “Some may want just that, but we won’t allow it, and will help Montenegro in closing at least 7 chapters” during Hungary’s EU presidency, Szijjártó said.
Realistically, NATO membership for Ukraine “is clearly out of the question” as this would raise the threat of a direct conflict with Russia, the foreign minister said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit, Péter Szijjártó said talks had been plagued by “enormous duplicity… They are trying to conjure an image of [Ukrainian] NATO accession while everyone knows this is out of the question and cannot be a matter of discussion.”
Szijjártó said the situation had led to “grammatical summersaults” in the summit’s closing declaration, “because if NATO admitted Ukraine, we would live under the constant, open and extremely dangerous threat of war, as Ukraine’s NATO membership would foreshadow direct conflict between Russia and NATO.”
Source: FB/Szijjártó
While that is no one’s goal, “the mainstream is suggesting that the closest possible cooperation is necessary,” he said.
Hungary was only willing to agree to the closing statement if it stated that any future NATO accession of Ukraine must be adopted unanimously, he said.
Ukraine will not be invited
“Once again, Ukraine will not be invited to NATO, so its membership is effectively off the table. Of course, everyone will make statements on how important it is,” he added.
Szijjártó said that NATO had earlier considered countries “good allies” based on their contributions to NATO security, participation in missions and the money spent on them.
Photo: facebook.com/orbanviktor
“They are now starting to rewire the issue,” Szijjártó said, insisting that those helping Ukraine the most were considered the best allies. “But Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and NATO’s security depends not on how strong Ukraine is but on how strong we are.”
Of its 32 member states, 23 have fulfilled the alliance’s aim to raise defence spending to 2 percent of GDP, Szijjártó said, noting that Hungary had reached that milestone 3 years ago.
“If we scratch the surface a little, it becomes obvious that many countries have included weapons delivered to Ukraine as part of that 2 percent, even though that does not strengthen the alliance’s collective security,” Szijjártó said.
“This is a kind of hypocrisy, as NATO’s strength and defence capabilities depend on our own strength and not that of Ukraine, as NATO is a defence alliance rather than an aggressor alliance,” Szijjártó said.
No Hungarian soldiers will participate in such an operation
Regarding the requirement that countries spend 20 percent of their defence spending on development, Szijjártó said Hungary was spending 48 percent of its own defence budget on defence and industrial development, the second highest ratio in Europe.
Photo: facebook.com/magyarhonvedseg
“The measure of who is considered a reliable and good ally should be who contributes to NATO’S security rather than political pamphlets and statements,” he said. “Hungary will continue to focus on attempts to keep NATO strong and not let it drift into the war.”
The draft resolution launching a mission to support Ukraine by coordinating weapon deliveries and military training operations endangered that aim, Szijjártó said.
“We have made an unequivocal agreement with the incumbent and the incoming [NATO] secretaries general … that no Hungarian soldiers will participate in such an operation, and the country’s territory cannot be used to advance such aims and budget resources cannot be funnelled into it,” he said.
Hungary will also keep out of a support fund for Ukraine, he said. “I think this is dangerous, not only because it’s a lot of money, but also in view of the underlying approach. A long-term financial plan for a war shows that they think it will drag on for a long time,” he said.
New bridge, border crossing may be built
Hungary has delivered an action plan to Ukraine with proposals on developing economic cooperation and creating special economic zones on either side of the border, Szijjártó said in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
The proposals also involve building new border crossings and rail links, renovating a bridge across the River Tisza and strengthening energy cooperation, he said, commenting on an hour-long meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart the previous day on the sidelines of the NATO summit.
“It’s clear that if two neighbouring countries cooperate, energy security can also improve on a mutual basis,” Szijjártó said.
The minister also put forward proposals to enhance cooperation in education and humanitarian areas.
He said the action plan could set ties within a new framework of development, adding that his counterpart promised to examine the plan and respond with Ukraine’s own proposals.
More and more weapons
Szijjártó said Kyiv had spoken positively of last week’s Hungary-Ukraine summit. The positions of the warring parties were “very far from each other”, he noted, and both sides saw the possibility of a ceasefire and peace negotiations differently.
“So much needs to be done to attain peace, but we must work on this,” he said, adding that there was “a very serious risk of escalation” in light of the “increasingly brutal” war developments from day to day.
He said there were “more and more weapons on both sides on the frontline”, and he referred to the recent “cruel” and “hearbreaking” attack on a children’s hospital.
Szijjártó said he and his Ukrainian counterpart were in agreement that the start of Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations opened “a kind of new chapter” in cooperation between the two countries, noting that Kyiv had vowed to restore the rights of the Hungarian national minority, adding that this was no longer a bilateral issue but had become formally a European one, too.
“We in Brussels must keep this issue to the fore and ensure that the rights of the national community are returned. In turn, this allows us to conclude a new bilateral compact on developing cooperation at a level that’s good for Ukraine and good for Hungary,” he said.
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PM Orbán continues“peace mission” in Washington, wants NATO to remain defence alliance
Turkic states could play an important role in the return to global cooperation, and Hungary considers it an important goal to improve relations with these countries during its European Union presidency, foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said in Shusha in Azerbaijan on Saturday.
Péter Szijjártó told a foreign ministers’ working meeting at the summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) that in the current era of crises, Hungary was forced to live in the shadow of a war for more than two and a half years.
During its current EU presidency, Hungary will make every effort to prevent the re-formation of blocs in the world because the country continues to believe in connectivity and cooperation based on mutual respect, he said.
Turkic states are critically important when it comes to returning to global cooperation, and it is therefore an important goal for Hungary to improve cooperation between the EU and the OTS, he said.
Hungary views the Turkic states as a source of new impetus and dynamism, which could greatly contribute to strengthening the EU’s competitiveness, he added.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has congratulated Dirk Beljaarts, the newly appointed economy minister of the Dutch government, in a letter posted in Hungarian on Facebook on Wednesday.
Szijjártó expressed thanks and appreciation to Beljaarts, who is fluent in Hungarian, for his work during his service as an honorary consul over the past almost ten years and his achievements in developing Dutch-Hungarian relations. He noted that for the EU presidency Hungary took over on July 1 for six months, enhancing the community’s competitiveness was a special priority in which the minister said “we count on the support of the Netherlands and you”.
Secretary-General of Council of EU attends cabinet meeting
Prime Minister Viktor Orban met on Wednesday morning Therese Blanchet, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, who attended the first cabinet meeting the government held since Hungary took over the EU’s rotating presidency, the prime minister’s press chief said.
Photo: Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda / Benko Vivien Cher
Blanchet and the members of the government reviewed at the joint working meeting the Hungarian presidency’s goals and discussed the tasks ahead and the timeframe of completing them, Bertalan Havasi said in a statement.
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Featured image: Dirk Beljaarts with Hungarian ambassador András Kocsis in 2022 in the Hague.
The General Assembly of the United Nations has adopted a Hungarian initiative with a full consensus to mark World Fair Play Day on May 19 each year, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook from New York on Tuesday.
“Today has started with a great Hungarian success,” the minister wrote, adding that 92 UNmembers had joined and co-authored the Hungarian proposal, “making a symbolic commitment and signalling their full support for our initiative”.
He said the initiative was backed by a “global coalition”, including China, the US, Germany, South Korea, Indonesia, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Hungarian initiative “promotes an approach to reinforce sportsmanship and the values it represents, such as abiding by the rules, respecting the adversary and combatting violence and doping,” Szijjártósaid.
Referring to the peace-promoting role of the Olympic Games, Szijjártó said: “We want the whole world to remember … when athletes hugged after a competition even when they came from countries at war with each other.”
“With less than three weeks before the 33rd Summer Olympics, it is no exaggeration to say that this has been the greatest demonstration globally of support for the independence of sports and against the tendency of the world falling into blocs again … and all this is associated with us Hungarians,” Szijjártó said.
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Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has expressed his condolences to his Slovak counterpart over a train crash that happened at Nove Zamky (Érsekújvár) on Thursday.
In his letter to Juraj Blanar, Szijjártóexpressed his sympathy with family members of the five victims and wished a speedy recovery to those that had been hospitalised with injuries.
Photo: MTI/EPA/Jakub Gavlak
In the accident, a high-speed train on its way from Prague to Budapest crashed with a bus at a railway crossing.
The consular services have not reported Hungarians involved in the accident.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a “nonsensical accusation” against Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said on his Facebook page on Thursday.
Szijjártó: This is nonsensical
Szijjártósaid Blinken had criticised Hungary over the freedom of religion, saying officials used “anti-Semitic tropes”.
“This accusation is especially nonsensical from the foreign minister of a country where attacks of intimidation against Jewish people have increased dramatically in the recent period and where anti-Semitic unrest has taken place at universities,” the minister said.
“Meanwhile, Israel’s national team and football clubs will play their matches in Hungary again in the next season because they feel safe here,” he said.
