In a message sent to the Brussels news portal Politico on Monday, Minister of State Zoltán Kovács criticised the European Commission’s Justice Scoreboard released last week, saying that the evaluation of judicial independence cannot be based on opinion polls.
The Budapest-Belgrade railway line, which is being renovated via Hungarian-Serbian-Chinese cooperation, will represent the fastest transport route from Southeastern Europe towards the interior of the continent.
“It is important to Hungary that China’s Silk Road concept, the One Belt, One Road Initiative (BRI), is not only present in maritime and land transport, but also in air transport”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Beijing on Saturday following talks with the directors of major Chinese companies.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi agreed on a five-point plan aimed at the further development of Hungarian-Chinese relations in Beijing on Saturday.
Bertalan Havasi, the Prime Minister’s press chief, has said that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave an address in Beijing at an in camera forum of leaders involved in the Belt and Road Initiative. In his address the Prime Minister highlighted four conclusions: foreign policy based on the export of democracy does not work; the power of demography must not be underestimated, because hopelessness leads to migration; free trade without physical linkages is mere empty rhetoric; and Central Europe is free and prosperous when the East and the West cooperate with each other.
“It is in Hungary’s national economic and strategic interests to continue its excellent cooperation with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI from Beijing on Friday.
“All political and cultural conditions are given for the development of Hungarian-Chinese economic relations”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Friday in Beijing in his speech prior to the conclusion of several Chinese-Hungarian business agreements.
In Beijing on Thursday Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met President of China Xi Jinping. In an article published on Friday, the English-language Chinese newspaper China Daily reported that Mr. Orbán said that Hungary is ready to promote the development of Europe-China relations as a whole through cooperation between China and the countries of the Central and Eastern European region.
“Hungary and Slovakia are preparing together for the eventuality that gas will not be arriving via Ukraine as a result of there being no Russia-Ukraine natural gas shipment agreement”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Friday following talks on the gas shipment situation following 1 January 2020 with Slovakian Economy Minister Peter Žiga in Beijing.
Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe are the engine of the continent’s growth, and therefore companies from the Far East, too, are bringing more and more investments to this region, Finance Minister Mihály Varga stated at a press conference held in Pozsony (Bratislava) after a meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Visegrád Group and Japan.