Honourable President Tokayev, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Kazakh Guests,
I would like to extend a warm welcome in public to President Tokayev. If the Hungarian service has been working well, the number I am about to give is accurate: the President visited us thirty years ago when he was Foreign Minister. This is the tenth anniversary of the signing of our strategic partnership agreement, and it is seventeen years since the last time a Kazakh President visited Hungary. This in itself underlines the importance of President Tokayev’s visit. The Kazakh president is a rare guest for us. He represents a powerful country from a region that is one of the most promising for the future. We have met the President several times, both in Kazakhstan and in the context of the Organization of Turkic States. I can also tell you based on experience – and not only on scientific analyses – that the Central Asian region is one of the fastest developing regions in the world, one of the most competitive regions. Kazakhstan is the strongest country in this region, and we will not be far wrong if we consider this region and Kazakhstan to be one of the key regions and key countries in the development of the world economy over the next 15–20 years. So this visit is particularly important for us Hungarians – not only because of friendship, but also because of the prospects and the future ahead of us. In this we are convinced that Kazakhstan will play an important role, and we need friends who will play an important role in the future.
I recall that the last time I was your guest, Mr. President, in addition to having fruitful negotiations, you were kind enough to name a street after our greatest poet, Sándor Petőfi. This was also received by the Hungarian public as a strong gesture of friendship. I might also mention that in Hungary there are always considerable historical debates about the origin of the Hungarians. But despite the debates there is one thing on which there is agreement: that, before they started their westward migration, the Hungarians lived somewhere in the Ural–Altai region, on the eastern side of the Urals. If I open a high school history textbook today, it starts like this: the Hungarians arrived in Europe after a long journey to the Carpathian Basin from their ancestral homeland, which was somewhere in the Ural–Altai region. And I look at the map and find the place that Hungarian history textbooks describe as “Magna Hungaria”, which was in an area that is now part of Kazakhstan. And so your visit is not just a normal diplomatic visit, it is not just about business, it is not just about the future and development; it is also about friendship, it is also about brotherhood, and it is also about a shared past. I think that this will be very important in the coming decades.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Trade development, new energy sources and the development of international transport routes are major issues that will dominate the next two to three decades, and they are areas in which Kazakhs and Hungarians have common interests. In this spirit, we have also agreed to improve our bilateral relations. We are not dissatisfied with the pace of development over the past few years, as our trade turnover has doubled in ten years, but the President and I have assessed that in this relationship the prospects and potential are much greater than what we have achieved so far. And today we shook hands and agreed that we want to make a breakthrough in Kazakh–Hungarian economic relations, that we want to make a quantum leap. And so we have agreed to deepen cooperation between Hungarian and Kazakh companies in the fields of pharmaceuticals, food, agriculture and water management. We are determined to establish a direct air link between our two capitals, and today we also agreed with the President to set up a joint financial fund, a Kazakh–Hungarian investment fund, with the aim of taking cooperation between the two countries to a new dimension.
The importance of Kazakhstan as a partner for Hungary is best illustrated by the fact that the most important issue for Europe in the coming period will be guaranteeing Europe’s energy security. And however we slice it, even if we take the most optimistic scenario for the green transition and believe the most optimistic figures for the development of new renewable energy capacity, if we accept all of this as true, the fact remains that Europe will still need imported energy. Europe cannot survive without energy imports from outside Europe. The question is this: Where can we expect to find additional sources of energy? How and from where will energy come to Europe? The Central Asian region, including Kazakhstan, plays a key role in this, and Kazakhstan is therefore a strategic partner for the future of energy security in Hungary and Europe. It is therefore important that it should be a priority area and there should be priority companies within the framework of flagship cooperation. We see energy and the economy as such a matter, and we are pleased that [the Hungarian energy company] MOL has been present and operating successfully in Kazakhstan for almost two decades, and that today’s negotiations will open up the possibility of increasing its presence. I have asked the President that, as Kazakhstan is about to embark on its first nuclear programme and we are in the process of such an investment, there should be professional and business cooperation between the Hungarian nuclear industry and representatives of the developing Kazakh nuclear industry.
Finally, Mr. President, I would like to mention that every year we offer 250 scholarships – Hungarian state scholarships – to Kazakh students, and at any one time a total of more than 700 Kazakh students are studying in Hungary. The President said that they are not only acquiring important knowledge, but that they also represent a kind of golden bridge between the two countries for the future generation. And we can believe that, thanks to these scholarship holders, the younger generation will continue the policy of friendship between Kazakhstan and Hungary that we are building with the President and with this meeting.
Finally I would like to mention that Hungary now holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. During this period we have done our utmost to accelerate and advance cooperation between the European Union and Kazakhstan. We have arranged a meeting of the European Union–Kazakhstan Cooperation Council. Our joint goal is to reach a visa facilitation agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan, which would make it much easier for Kazakh people to come to Europe, and would also make it much easier to build Kazakh–Hungarian economic ties and personal, family ties.
Honourable President,
Once again, on behalf of Hungary, with a grateful heart I thank you for honouring us with your visit.