Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Hungary will stick to its “policy of peace” and welcomes that Slovakia is taking a similar stance.
After meeting Peter Pellegrini, the head of the Slovak National Assembly, in Budapest on Monday, PM Orbán said Hungary was “watching with concern as hundreds of thousands die or become widows or orphans” in the war in Ukraine. PM Orbán said peace was the most pressing issue currently, “but Europe is speaking the language of war.” Hungary and Slovakia, meanwhile, are speaking the language of peace, he said. PM Orbán vowed Hungary would stand by its policy and said he hoped to be able to work for peace with Slovakia. “Good neighborly relations are all the more valuable in times of danger,” Orbán said. PM Orbán and Pellegrini discussed matters pertaining to sovereignty, such as the European Union debate on “taking away member states’ right to veto certain issues, including foreign policy, and the regulation that decisions must be voted for unanimously,” he said. On that matter, Hungary and Slovakia are pro-sovereignty, he said. PM Orbán thanked Slovakia for its help in protecting the Hungarian-Serbian border, noting that the country had sent policemen to perform their tasks there during Pellegrini’s premiership. “We got help in protecting our southern borders, which is why we don’t have tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants roaming central Europe today,” he said. Slovakia and Hungary fought together against the EU’s mandatory resettlement quotas, too, he added. Hungary and Slovakia both see “energy freedom” as very important and cooperate in energy policy, including nuclear energy, he added. He welcomed that 18 new border crossings have been opened between the two countries since 2018. He praised Pellegrini as a prime minister under whose tenure Hungary and Slovakia’s friendship had deepened, “and we found common ground on which to build good neighbourly relations.”