Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary’s “sovereign foreign policy has proven that it is possible to remain a faithful ally and still maintain pragmatic and civilized relations with countries in the East such as Russia”.
Speaking at the 23rd summit of the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum, the minister insisted that “the loudest critics of China and Russia” made the greatest profits on cooperation with those countries. Referring to the Ukraine-Russia situation, Minister Szijjártó reaffirmed Hungary’s support for negotiations and cooperation between the two sides. Concerning the migration crisis, he said that despite “extremely serious attacks” against the government’s introduction of strict border controls and its migration policy in general, Hungary and other Visegrad Group countries cooperated to stop mandatory migrant quotas from being introduced across Europe. Those quotas “could have led to a disaster”, he added.
On another subject, Minister Szijjártó said the government had made a strategic decision early in 2021 to resolve the shortage of coronavirus vaccines by importing Eastern ones, helping a vaccination drive, which meant the country could reopen its economy two months before the rest of Europe. He also slammed European institutions for “making licencing vaccines a political issue”, calling this “one of their greatest mistakes ever”.
Photo credit: MTI