Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó called close cooperation between East and West, and Hungary’s role as a bridge, a Hungarian interest at the Eurasia Forum in Budapest on Wednesday.

“Cooperation between the Eurasian states is the best instrument for ensuring that the European Union gains strength and is competitive”, Mr. Szijjártó emphasised. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said processes within the global economy are changing rapidly, “old systems are collapsing, old friendships are dissolving, and new ones are being formed”. “The two strongest players in the global economy are the United States and China, while the European Union has fallen behind in the competition between states”, he pointed out.

He said that in his opinion the European Union is late and has not provided suitable responses to challenges, citing the patriotic decisions of the U.S. administration and China’s rate of economic growth of around 6 percent, which is outstanding in global comparison.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was a mistake that instead of reinforcing competition the EU has introduced a measure to restrict internal competition, and which in turn is also preventing external competitive action. “In recent years, the countries of Central Europe have realised structural reforms, include tax reforms, to make their economies more competitive, but in contrast the EU is pushing for tax harmonisation at EU level”, he stated. “Our message to the states of Western Europe is that we will be blocking all measures and initiatives aimed at forcing tax harmonisation onto the community, because that prevents tax reform and competitive action, as well as preventing the realisation of disciplined fiscal policy”, he stated.

Mr. Szijjártó also spoke about the fact that the direction of capital investment has now changed: increasing numbers of large eastern enterprises are acquiring Western European companies. “While in 2007, 77 percent of capital investment was realised by companies from the United States and the European Union, in 2018 the ratio of investment projects realised by Western enterprises from the United States and the European Union fell to 37 percent”, he said. The Minister also noted that while German companies had stood in first place for years with relation to the level of capital investment in Hungary, in the first half of 2019 they were overtaken by South Korean companies.

“For years, Hungary has bee criticized for commissioning a Russian company to construct the new block of the Paks Nuclear Power plant, while taking into account all of the major companies involved the Paks project is a in fact a joint Russian-American-French-German and Hungarian project”, he highlighted.

“Cooperation between the countries of Eurasia is clearly in the interests of the European Union, and within it Hungary, because it reinforces technological and scientific development and provides a boost towards improving the EU’s competitiveness”, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade stated.

(MTI)