Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said that ending the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible and starting peace talks is in Hungary's fundamental interest because continuing the war "brings the nightmare of a third world war closer" each day.
Many of Europe’s political leaders are under the influence of “a war psychosis”, Minister Szijjártó said in an interview. “They speak and think as if they were personally at war…, and are unable to make reasonable decisions,” he said, adding that this led to statements about the possible option of sending [European] ground forces to the war. NATO is the world’s strongest defense alliance, he said, adding that it would be “illogical” for Russia to attack any of its members since under its charter, NATO would need to respond as an alliance. NATO was set up as an alliance tasked with defense and since it is not under attack, it does not need to respond, Minister Szijjártó said. Speaking about Europe’s defense industry, the foreign minister stated Hungary’s support to its development in the interest of boosting Europe’s industrial growth and to enable “Europe to defend itself without involving the United States”. He said that a proposal by the European Council’s president “to shift to a war economy” was “posing an exceptional risk in itself”.