Hungary has said that it welcomes US President Donald Trump’s "non-interventionist policy," which is based on mutual respect.
Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, made the remarks during a speech at the Washington conservative Heritage Foundation on Friday.
Minister Szijjártó spoke in detail about the new challenges Europe is facing and the new era of Hungarian-US relations.
The minister mentioned the attempted interventions of the former US administration and the migrant policy of the Hungarian government. In the context of Europe, the minister stressed that the EU is facing five major historical challenges: the threat of terrorism, the problem of migration, the war in Ukraine, issues related to energy security and Brexit.
The minister said the European Union needs a rational debate on the issue of migration. “The question is which way we should be heading now," he said. All EU member states agree that we need a strong Europe; the debate is about how this could be achieved, he said.
Minister Szijjártó took the view that the relations of the EU, Hungary and the United States with Russia should be characterized by a reasonable debate.
Hungary has a primary interest in ensuring that US-Russian relations should be more balanced than they are at present, he stated. “History teaches us that whenever any conflict evolved between East and West, Central Europe found itself on the receiving end”.
The Minister highlighted that "when we root for the US president’s efforts to improve relations with Russia, we don’t do so because we’re pro-Russian or pro-American, but simply because we’re pro-Hungarian," he said. "We must protect the security of the Hungarian people."
The minister added how Hungary would be happy to diversify its energy sources and would buy American liquefied natural gas (LNG), but Poland alone has the infrastructure that is necessary for receiving it.
Hungary welcomed the US president’s opinion to the effect that “bilateral relations must be based on mutual respect, not on teaching one another lessons”.
He highlighted how the former administration presented the Hungarian government with a list that featured, among other things, the transformation of the Constitution and the alteration of the laws regulating churches.