The performance of the past twelve years, and especially of last year, proves that the Hungarian model works effectively even in the face of the greatest challenges, stated Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó on Tuesday in Budapest.
According to the ministry's announcement, the head of the ministry said at the 23rd financial summit of the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum that the government always gave "special Hungarian answers" to the difficulties, which were strongly attacked from both inside and outside, but at the same time, they proved to be successful.
In his speech, he went through five main challenges, starting with the financial crisis of 2008-2009, after which the country, according to his words, was in a terrible economic state. As he said, the new government took up the fight against this with tax cuts, a broad investment promotion program and the policy of opening to the east, the common point of which measures is that they "waved goodbye to hypocrisy".
In connection with the migration crisis, he emphasized that Hungary was hit by extremely serious attacks due to the tightening of border protection and immigration policy, but together with the Visegrád states, it was still possible to prevent the introduction of the mandatory quota system in the European Union. "It would have led to a tragedy on the continent," he opined.
Péter Szijjártó then spoke about the coronavirus epidemic and the vaccine shortage at the beginning of 2021, when the government made the strategic decision to boost the immunization campaign with Eastern vaccines. Without this, Hungary would not have been able to reopen its economy two months before the EU average, he added.
The minister called one of the biggest mistakes ever made by the European institutions that they made a political issue out of the authorization of some vaccines.
Regarding the handling of the economic aspect of the crisis, he emphasized that the opposition encouraged the acceleration of aid-based money distribution from loans, which would essentially have been the financing of unemployment. Instead, the government used the resources to prevent unemployment and put together the largest investment promotion program of all time.
Finally, the minister mentioned the sovereign foreign policy: "we proved that it is possible to act as good allies at the same time, and to maintain pragmatic, civilized relations with the world to the east of us, for example with Russia".
He stated that the countries that criticize China and Russia the loudest make the biggest profits from cooperation with them. He believed that the effects of the international sanctions policy should be thoroughly analyzed.
In connection with the current tension in Ukraine, he called on the opposing parties to cooperate and negotiate, saying that Hungary and Central Europe have always emerged as losers from the conflict between East and West.
Péter Szijjártó stated: if the people vote confidence in the government again in the April 3 election, the policy focused on reducing taxes and bureaucracy and attracting investments to our country will continue.
Source: MTI, 888.hu
