“The impact of investment agreements signed in recent years will be apparent in GDP data in the coming quarters, I can assure everybody of that,” the foreign minister said.
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary’s GDP will get a boost as big new industrial capacities are completed.
Minister Szijjártó said production at manufacturing investments by BMW and CATL would start this year, while construction of BYD’s factory was progressing “at full steam” and work on Mercedes’ second plant would soon enter “the final stretch”.
Answering a question at a press conference on the release of first-quarter GDP by the Central Statistics Office in the morning, he said Hungary’s GDP would grow “by leaps and bounds” when those plants started production.
“The impact of investment agreements signed in recent years will be apparent in GDP data in the coming quarters, I can assure everybody of that,” he added.
In response to questions, Minister Szijjártó protested sharply against efforts by the European People’s Party to “prolong the war” and fast-track Ukraine into the European Union.
“The EPP is the most pro-war and pro-Ukraine party group in Europe. The president of the EPP is one of the most pro-war and pro-Ukraine politicians in Brussels and on the European political scene in general,” he said.
“We support peace efforts, not efforts to prolong the war, and we rejected Ukraine’s fast-tracked EU accession because for us that would mean flooding the Hungarian labour market with Ukrainian workers, and the Ukrainian mafia would use Hungary as a gateway. Thanks but no thanks! We say no to the EPP’s pro-war and pro-Ukraine policies,” he added.
Regarding Tuesday’s visit by Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European integration, Minister Szijjártó said he recently agreed with his Ukrainian counterpart that the two countries will both assign a delegation to review the situation of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia.
“We have designated Levente Magyar, the deputy foreign minister, and they have assigned their deputy prime minister. So the heads of the two delegations met for talks. And I sincerely hope that the Ukrainians will this time take the issue seriously, because experience from the past decade suggests otherwise,” he said
“Over the past ten years, I have worked with four different Ukrainian foreign ministers on this matter, and although they were always rhetorically committed to the issue, their actions always turned out to be the opposite,” he added.
“We of course, continue to welcome the talks and continue to take part in the consultations, but now we should not just talk about this matter; the Ukrainians should take action… The situation is not complicated: there was a legal state of affairs until 2015; that is what should be restored. So they need to do the opposite of the laws that have been passed since 2015, taking away the rights of the Hungarians,” Minister Szijjártó concluded.
