“Cooperation between East and West is in Hungary’s political, economic, and primarily security interests”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared at a press conference on Monday in Minsk following talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Vladimir Makei.

Mr. Szijjártó was also received by Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko. At the press conference, the Minister drew attention to the fact that during the course of history the people of Central Europe were forced to clearly learn and understand the lessons of history. “It has become clear to the Hungarians: it is in the interests of the Central European for a pragmatic cooperation to come about between  East and West that is based on common sense and mutual respect”, he declared.

“We Hungarians are not calling for cooperation between East and West because it is the interest of any power greater than ourselves, but because it is in our interests. This is in Hungary’s political, economic and most importantly security interests”, the Minister declared. According to Mr. Szijjártó, the Hungarians have clearly learned that if there is conflict between East and West, the n the countries of Central Europe come out the losers. “We would finally like to give the period over to the past, and accordingly we are striving to achieve close cooperation with all countries that support cooperation between East and West”, Mr. Szijjártó said, pointing out that both countries are among the important supporters of East-West cooperation.

“Hungary is a member of the European Union, which Belarus is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which makes cooperation all the more important, because amidst a continuously transforming global economy and global trade, it is clearly in Europe’s interests to maintain pragmatic cooperation with its eastern neighbours. For this reason, Hungary is calling for closer economic cooperation between the EU and EAEU, towards which cooperation between our two countries represents a good foundation”, Mr. Szijjártó stated.

In reply to a question from the press, the Minister said that the EU is “isolating itself” a little, and Budapest would like to see a much more open Brussels policy in future. “We believe that the EU can be strong if it is also able to forge cooperation, close friendships and alliances outside the EU’s borders”, Mr. Szijjártó said, adding that Hungary counts as a pro-enlargement country within the EU, and this is also generally also true of the countries of Central Europe and the Visegrád Group countries.

According to the Minister, with the approaching tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Eastern Partnership, Hungary would like to make it clear: This programme must be reinforced, and it must be acknowledged that it is difficult to build partnership with sanctions. “We would like to build a cooperation that is much more pragmatic and based to a much greater extent on mutual respect”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

He mentioned that Budapest has always been on the side of gradually reducing the sanctions against Belarus. He reported the fact that thanks to the investment protection agreement concluded during his negotiations in Minsk, cooperation between enterprises from the two countries will gain new impetus. This is being supplemented by the fact that the Hungarian Government has opened  a 64-million-dollar credit line at Eximbank to finance cooperation between enterprises, in addition to which, in cooperation with the Belarus Development Bank, Eximbank has also established a ten-million-dollar development credit line.

Mr. Szijjártó reported on three economic cooperation projects at his press conference in Minsk. Hungary’s largest pharmaceuticals company, Richter, has a dynamically increasing share of the market in Belarus, and the company will be taking further steps to increase its market share. In addition, construction of the first food industry plant to be established through Hungarian-Belarusian cooperation will soon begin in Mogilev, where food processing will be performed using maize with the application of Hungarian technology.

From the end of this year, for the first time in the history of Hungarian railways, bilevel electric trains will begin running on the country’s most busy suburban railway lines in Budapest, and these trains will be constructed in Belarus-Hungarian cooperation: 19 such electric trains will be manufacture by Swiss company Stadler, partly in Minsk and partly in Szolnok and Dunakeszi. Thanks also to the aforementioned economic activity, trade flow between the two countries reached 200 million dollars during the first ten months of last year, which represent a year-on-year increase of 20 percent and is more than the figure for the whole of last year.

Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about the fact that the two countries are also placing major emphasis on relations between people. He thanked the Belarusian Government for affording Hungarian citizens visa-free travel. The Hungarian Government has also made the decision to provide the greatest possible allowances to Belarusian visa applicants within the framework provided by the Schengen Agreement, in addition to which it is providing 50 scholarship places-a-year to enable students from Belarus to attend Hungarian universities. Budapest welcomed the fact that a Hungarian department has been established at Minsk University. This will all help to facilitate better understanding of each other and closer relations between our cultures, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade added.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)