Defense Minister: Hungary committed to 2% defense budget spend by next year

In the latest episode of The Bold Truth About Hungary podcast, host Zoltán Kovács, state secretary for international communication and relations, spoke with Defense Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky about Hungary's relationship with NATO and Hungary reaching the 2% threshold, modernizing the army and building up a military industry. Finally, he made some remarks about the Ukraine war and the lessons learned from it which will be discussed in a separate article. 

"We have committed to come up to the famous 2% of our budget by next year. I think this is a great achievement that we are there and that increase made it possible for us really to start systematically replacing the old Soviet-style equipment with modern NATO-compatible high-tech equipment. Some pieces of that are visibly behind us. These are the new mainly from Europe-procured equipment and the good news about them is that much of it or many of these items are produced in Hungary because we put major emphasis on the development of a defense industry," the defense minister said.

"The defense industry is essential, not only because it brings jobs and helps the economy further grow but also because it makes sure that our procurement prices are better and more competitive. But most importantly, because of our security, because we do not rely then on foreign suppliers and our supply chains can be uninterrupted and we can procure the necessary items, ammunition and other items from our own defense industry. So I think it is a quite well-balanced and well-planned process in which the Hungarian army's need is identified by military experts. And then we plan the amounts that are needed, we procure from the market − again, I say largely relying on European suppliers −, and then in the cases where it makes sense for both the supplier and for us, then we incentivize the companies to come to Hungary and invest and build well-working factories from which we land further by, so that's the model how we work."