“Hungarian-German economic, technological and innovation cooperation, which is already functioning well, must be raised to a new level”, Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics stressed on Thursday in Berlin following a meeting with the Federal Republic of Germany’s Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure Andreas Scheuer.

In a statement to Public Media, Mr. Palkovics recalled that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on raising cooperation to a new level at their meeting in Berlin last summer.

The Minister told the press that he and his German counterpart has reviewed the areas in which both countries would like to further develop cooperation in view of technological, economic and social challenges. These include the field of electromobility and self-driven automotive industry technologies, in which Hungary “has positioned itself particularly well”.

The parties also discussed the test track for self-driven vehicles being established in Zalaegerszeg, and he invited Andreas Schauer to visit the facility, which will be occurring in March, the Minister told the press.

“Cooperation is not restricted to the connection between road and vehicle, in view of the fact that self-driven cars also communicate with each other”, Mr. Palkovics underlined, explaining that he and the German Minister had also discussed the fifth-generation mobile network (5G) and digital solutions, as well as transport-related energy solutions, including inductive charging technologies that can be built into roads.

Innovation was also a priority topic, Mr. Palkovics said, underlining the fact that the number of relations between Hungarian and German research institutes and universities may be high, but the intensity of relations remains below that of those between enterprises, and this is something both parties would like to change.

The parties also discussed the European Union’s financial framework for 2021-2027, “the winner of which will clearly be innovation and research, and the parties would like Hungarian and German universities to perform significantly better together” than during the current seven-year budget period, which is slowly drawing to a close, the Minister said.

(MTI)