“Central Europe is the European Union’s most successful region”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in London on Monday.

The Minister, who attended an introductory forum for stock exchange directors from the countries of the Visegrád Group (V4) at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), declared: “The performance of Central Europe is determined by the performance of the V4 economies”. “It is no longer an exaggeration to state that Central Europe, and particularly the countries of the V4, is increasingly becoming the engine of EU growth”, he added.

Mr. Szijjártó told the press that last year annual trade flow between Germany and the V4 group was 65 percent higher than annual trade between the Eurozone’s two largest economies: Germany and France.

“This clearly indicates that the axis of the European economy and of European competitiveness is shifting from Western Europe towards the centre of Europe”, the Minister said.

Last year, the average gross domestic product (GDP) of the V4 economies was 4.1 percent, while average growth in the EU was 2.4 percent. “Comparing the two figures, you may understand why we dare state that we have become the engine of Europe’s economic growth”, Mr. Szijjártó said in his speech at the London Stock Exchange before business leaders and analysts.

Total employment within the four Visegrád Group economies exceeded 30 million people last year, and the average unemployment rate was just 5 percent, he said. “Taking into account all of the above, it may be stated that the economic policies of the four countries are extremely successful”, the Hungarian Foreign Minister said.

The average rate of government debt of the four countries is 52 percent, while the EU average is 82 percent, he also stated.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, all this is a clear indication of fiscal discipline. This is also supplemented by an annual growth in exports of 10 percent, and this also shows to what extent the Central European region is successful, he said.

“In Hungary, we have succeeded in radically increasing the level of investments made in the Hungarian economy through a low, flat-rate personal income tax and Europe’s only single digit corporation tax”, he added.

According to the Minister, this is one of the reasons why Hungary is against EU-level tax harmonisation, because its tax system is one of the foundations of the country’s competitiveness.

With relation to Brexit, Mr. Szijjártó declared: “Hungary refuses to enter into an argument on whether there should be a ‘hard or soft Brexit’; Hungary’s standpoint is that we need a fair Brexit agreement, supplemented by the widest-ranging free trade agreement possible between Great Britain and the EU, with particular attention to the fact that the British economy provides one seventh of the EU’s performance”.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)