Peter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary will enter into an alliance with Central American states including Panama to fight against the re-emergence of blocs in the world.
Speaking in Panama City, Minister Szijjártó said that similarly to Hungary, Panama served as a meeting point between the East and West. He said individual events in several locations around the world posed a threat to global security and, combined, they represented an extra threat. “And unfortunately under this global security threat, the world is moving at high speed towards the re-emergence of blocs,” Szijjártó said. “We do not want the world to be again torn up into blocs,” he said adding that there are several countries in Central America that would suffer damage from the re-emergence of blocs. “We are now entering into an alliance with these countries. We are building an alliance with Central American states whose interests are clearly against the emergence of blocs in the world and they have a vested interest in the upcoming period of world history to be dedicated to connections and freedom in global trade,” the minister said. Szijjártó said the government had done much work in the past years on improving competitiveness, as a result of which Hungary is among the most open economies in the world, being in 33rd place in the global list in terms of export performance, which corresponds to 85% of GDP. “As a result, we have a fundamental interest in the freedom of global trade and the global economy. We are the meeting point of East and West in Europe, the same way as several Central American countries function as meeting points of the Eastern and Western worlds,” he added. He cited Panama as an excellent example, adding that preserving the Panama Channel was a fundamental interest from the point of unrestricted access to global trade, and without which the whole global economy would be in a difficult situation. “As a result, Panama also has a vested interest in the freedom on global trade, and the re-emergence of blocs is against its interests,” Szijjártó said. He said that each year ten students from Panama studied in Hungary on scholarship and extra demand was significant. Additionally, there was great demand for advanced water management, waste management and drug manufacturing technologies.