Hungarian Atlantic Council 2025 – Speech
Dear Mr President! Mr Chancellor! Members of the Council! Ladies and Gentlemen!
Hungary is a country where the audience typically appreciates spontaneity. My own preference would also be for improvisation. However, as they say, a man grows, and so the time has come that I finally arrived with a prepared speech. And I would also like to grab the opportunity to thank the organisers for giving us the chance to exchange ideas together today.
Today’s conference is titled “On the threshold of a new world order”.
However, I would like to go further, because I believe that there is more to it than that.
We are not simply at the beginning of a new era; we are already living in it. We are not merely on the threshold of a paradigm shift from the neoliberal world order, we have already left this neoliberal world order behind. A multipolar world is already here, and it has kicked the door in with both feet.
I do not want to beat around the bush, so I will say up front what I would like to talk about in the time allotted. The central theme of my presentation would be this: in my judgment, liberal democracy and the doctrines of neoliberal economic policy, with their increasingly authoritarian features, are finally over. As a consequence, the upcoming years will not be defined by familiar patterns but by unpredictability and creative chaos. In this new world, the old reflexes no longer work, so Hungarian diplomacy will have to adopt a new posture. This posture can be described in one sentence: Hungary comes first.
Let us take a closer look at the details, because the devil is always in the details.
The new paradigm is being shaped now, it is not emerging on its own, but is being shaped by the negotiations and decisions of international actors. We are witnessing this all over the world. We are witnessing events that cannot be explained by the liberal logic of the past. The American and Russian leaderships are entering into negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine. One day there are tariffs, the next day there are none, the third day there may be, the fourth day there are for certain countries at least. The common feature of all these events is that more and more things are happening that are beyond comprehension, unimaginable and inexplicable to the liberal mind, who say that since these occurrences make no sense to them, they cannot and should not be explained. As if something they do not understand does not make any sense. We know this attitude all too well. If someone does something they do not like, it is absurd, but at the very least it sets back progress by 150 years, as we have learned from otherwise renowned Hungarian liberal economists.
But I would suggest a different approach instead of the liberal one. We cannot give up interpreting the world, even if it shows symptoms that conflict with our understanding of the world. For if we give up the possibility of understanding, we are surely conceding an own goal.
Therefore, we must not wait for the world to change back – we must reshape the way we see the world.
In these circumstances true, savvy international actors are in constant flux: they adapt their positions over and over again to the evolving situation. In this process, the positions of the main actors may change from week to week, their stances may change, and their current alliance system is constantly being updated. A new development in one region can lead to a domino effect in the balance of power elsewhere. It is a situation where individual countries must decide whether they will be shaping or suffering the next world order.
The most significant change has been brought about, of course, by the US presidential election last autumn. Donald Trump’s ascent to power has also changed the foreign policy dynamics of the Western world. What we have seen so far is that in the West, on both sides of the Atlantic, the forces defending the neoliberal status quo are in the majority.
But now the US has joined the ranks of those seeking to alter the status quo. The camp of those who demand change has existed before, but it has typically been made up of non-Western countries that have been adversely affected, or at least have not benefited, from the existing liberal international system. Now this has changed. The policeman has turned into a cowboy. The defenders of the previous order have been weakened and their position has been relegated to Europe.
It is not a secret that Hungary’s right-wing, sovereignist, patriotic government has maintained excellent relations with President Donald Trump and his administration. Today, we see that President Trump has started to build a post-liberal world order with his trademark elemental vigour. This is good news for Hungary, and at the same time a sign that we should be cautious.
Because of its size, Hungary is not one of the strongest players in the international order. Therefore, we Hungarians know that we must always be wise and remain cautious. But the change represents a historic opportunity, and even more so because we have been on the losing end of almost every change of world order in the last hundred years.
We have lost two world wars. During the Cold War we were invaded by the Soviet Union. And although the liberal world order has restored our country’s integration with the West, the neoliberal economic system has not made Hungary’s economic rise that much easier, but actually more difficult.
But now, in the mid-2020s, we have the opportunity to play our part in shaping the next world order. I believe this is a historic opportunity that we must seize.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
It is probably already clear from what I have said so far that I believe we are in the middle of a transition process. The boat of the world order, or the boat of the world, has already been released from the neoliberal shores, but the boat has not yet docked on the other side of the sea. In fact, what this other side will look like is also up to us. It is up to us to understand why the world as we know it had to end.
The events I have listed so far are not extraordinary. There have been similar transformations in the history of the world. Yet the events of transition seem extraordinary because we are trying to understand them through the lens of the old world order. But these glasses have a strange, special filter that distorts our vision. It does not allow us to see what falls outside the toolkit of liberal explanatory principles.
We, on the other hand, have to look at the events through the glasses of the coming world, even if we do not know exactly what that world will look like. This is a very difficult task intellectually and politically, but it is certainly not insurmountable. All we have to do is to look at the anomalies that this neoliberal system cannot explain and that have not been allowed to be talked about so far.
I have personally compiled ten such anomalies that have brought the internal contradictions of the neoliberal world order upon us, and which we can expect the next multipolar world order to resolve. If you will allow me, I would like to share them with you now.
The first anomaly is that the liberal concept, this neo-liberal concept, has ignored the connections between economic performance and the nation. This is a link that we tend to ignore in this globalised world. And yet it is precisely from these connections, among others, that the original liberal economics derives. Adam Smith even speaks of the economy of nations when he says that the main duty of the economy is to produce a common good, or rather a common virtue, from private interest.
To reverse the point: if we separate the future of a community from its economic performance, we deprive it of its own values and achievements. Where the economy has been weakened, the nation has become more vulnerable. This is particularly true in Europe: the continent’s economic foundations have been shaken, and with them the international room for manoeuvre of European states has been reduced. Meanwhile, in the Far East, the opposite process was taking place: stronger economies strengthened nations, both politically and geopolitically. We have done the same in Hungary. We have increased the size of the national economy by more than 60 percent in the last decade and a half. Our economy is now more than two and half times the size it was in 2010.
We have realised in time that without a strong economy there is no strong nation. That is one of the most important lessons of this era.
The second anomaly stems directly from the first. In the liberal paradigm, it has become irrelevant where production takes place. This led to a massive decline in both industrial production and industrial manufacturing capacity in the West. A decade and a half ago, the United States and the EU – i.e. the Western world – produced 47% of the world’s industrial value added. Today that figure is down to 30 per cent. China, meanwhile, has improved from 9 to 30 percent. Meanwhile, America has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs. As for Hungary, the industrial value added has grown by a rate that is 10 percentage points above the EU average, and the number of people working in industry is around 20 per cent higher compared to 2010.
The reason for the decline in Western industry and manufacturing is that the liberal economic paradigm has long been based on the belief that the future lies exclusively in services, while industry is an outdated, outsourceable burden. The importance of manufacturing has been underestimated and marginalised in European economies.
This model may have worked for a while, but today the world is increasingly fragmented. The global distribution of services is getting more and more difficult: Western service providers are moving out from the East, Eastern ones are moving out from the West. In a fragmented world, industry and production are essential. This is not only an issue of economics, but also of sovereignty.
The third anomaly lies in the mistaken belief that liberal rules and principles can supersede interest-based foreign policy and provide a new basis for the international order. Translated into English, this means that the Western world has based its foreign policy solely on a specific set of ethic intentions rather than on foreign policy realism.
To put it more simply: all you need to do is to want the right thing, all you need to do is follow the rules, and everything will be fine. Only this approach has brought more trouble than results. Hardly a miracle, given that this approach is resolutely oblivious to results, only to intentions, and the results are quite uninspiring: the Arab Spring, the Middle East in flames, the Russian-Ukrainian war, the migration crisis. I could go on and on. All of these events are examples of successful intentions that have ultimately weakened the West and strengthened its challengers. In neither case is it a question of who was morally right. Yet the liberal approach was doomed to failure from the outset because it only cared about the moral considerations and did not take into account the interests of the actors. This is a valuable lesson for the future: lasting success can only be achieved on the basis of reality.
The fourth anomaly is essentially a direct consequence of the above and is entirely tangible. We have now reached the point where even in the United States of America, the most powerful Western state that had essentially created the former international order, discontent with the neoliberal world order has reached brutal dimensions.
The re-election of Donald Trump is not only a political turning point, but also a sign of a deeper fracture in the world system. For the international public, it was earth-shaking because it challenged the unspoken assumption behind the previous world order: that the rules of the system automatically guarantee the global primacy of the United States. Recent years, however, have demonstrated just the opposite: American society has increasingly perceived that it is not our business to agree with them, we just need to understand how they think. The American public has increasingly come to perceive that the rules of the liberal order no longer protect the enforcement of American interests, but rather limit them.
Real GDP growth in the US economy has consistently and significantly underperformed that of the emerging economies. The productivity of the American economy has not been able to grow by more than 1.5 percent over the past two decades. At the same time, the US trade deficit has doubled.
The Trump administration has provided a political response to this realisation. He has been given a mandate to rebuild the global position of the United States, and to do so he wants to reset the rules of the world order. He aligns principles to interests, not the other way around.
Mr Trump has recognised that success in the future world order will come to those states that have a strong foundation – economically, socially, politically and institutionally. Competition in the future will be about the capacity and quality of state organisation.
From now on, the United States cannot afford to become a weakly organised, impotent state bound by liberal principles. The lesson is clear: the United States will only follow liberal principles as long as they are compatible with American interests. When that coherence breaks down, it will not hesitate to override principles in the name of interests.
The fifth anomaly of the liberal order is that the leaders of the European Union have seen themselves as the custodians of the most advanced civilisation in history. They have behaved as if the EU were a modern-day Atlantis – a place where the disturbances of the rest of the world no longer apply and where superior ideas automatically lead to the right decisions. At the same time, they have deluded themselves that the world can no longer influence Europe – but neither can Europe influence the world.
Meanwhile, reality suggests otherwise. At the end of the Cold War, the EU accounted for a quarter of the world economy – today it accounts for only 14%. Over the last 25 years it has consistently underperformed, lagging behind not only China but also the United States. The gap between European and American GDP has doubled and per capita income has grown twice as fast in the US than in the EU.
Meanwhile, Europe has lost its defence capabilities, its economy has got weaker, it is unable to assert its interests in its immediate neighbourhood, its partners are taking it less and less seriously, and mass migration is tearing the fabric of society apart. Europe may be like Atlantis – but it must be remembered that Atlantis eventually sank.
If you want to stay on top of the world, it is not enough to imagine yourself to be the best. You have to perform as the best.
The sixth anomaly is that the liberal world order has spawned a world in which there is a growing antagonism between indigenous communities in Western countries and newly arrived illegal immigrants. The support of migration has been based on a serious misconception: the false assumption that newcomers bring prosperity and economic strength, and thus strengthen nations.
This idea seemed flawed from the start, and it is now clear that migration actually weakens nations instead of strengthening them. It does not increase the economically active population in any meaningful way, it does not contribute to sustainable growth, it does however place a significant burden on the supply chain, undermines the functioning of the state and destabilises society. The previously functioning social and economic models have been disrupted. This is no longer a subject of ideological debate, but a visible, tangible consequence.
In the last three years, almost one million migrants have arrived in Europe every year. In contrast, less than half of these migrants are rejected, while barely a quarter of them are actually expelled from the continent.
To state the sheer numbers then, 1 million migrants arrive and just under 100,000 of them leave in a single year. At the same time, public safety is deteriorating. In Germany, for example, the rate of violent crime has increased significantly on average. The number of those officially classified as having been committed by people with a migrant background has risen by 7.5 per cent, compared to the increase rate of 1.5 per cent in the original figures, which means that the increase of migrant-related violent crimes is five times higher. We have managed to protect Hungary from mass migration. While the number of illegal border crossing attempts on all European migration routes increased last year, the number of illegal border crossing attempts at our country’s southern borders decreased by 80 percent.
The bankruptcy of liberal ideology has made it clear that those who cannot protect their communities will sooner or later lose their nations.
The seventh anomaly is that after the Cold War, Europe decided that it no longer needed to defend itself. Europe believed the liberal myth or hoax that history had ended. Europe has believed and has made its citizens believe that it no longer needs to be able to defend itself, because liberal democracies are growing in number and confrontation between them is by definition unimaginable. And the countries that acted in this spirit were all militarily weakened. Compared with 1990, the major European countries have seen their military strength halved and their combat assets reduced to a fraction of what they were in 1990. And while the US did not substantially reduce its defence spending in the first decade of the Cold War, the European members cut it by 15 per cent. This trend was reversed only a few years ago. In Hungary, we have increased our military spending by almost 2.5 times since the launch of the military development programme in 2016. We spend almost 40 percent of our defence budget on development, making us the fourth best performing member state.
But Europe has essentially outsourced its own defence in recent decades, putting their trust in others and hoping that it would be more than enough. It trusted its overseas allies and the international law. But it has overlooked the simplest of realities: if you outsource your security, you don’t get to decide.
This dependency is especially apparent now in the Russia-Ukraine war. Europe was forced into a position at the outset of the war where following the pro-war position of the Americans seemed the only viable course – even if we thought it was clearly contrary to the long-term strategic interests of the continent. NATO’s decisions have been dominated by the United States for decades, and when the political majority in Washington was behind the confrontation, Europe had little choice but to follow the US leadership into a proxy war.
Today, however, the situation is reversed. The new US leadership has moved towards a peace settlement – while Europe is already deeply embroiled in a conflict with no visible military solution. It has remained on the front line, but the political support behind it seems to be drying up.
The lesson is simple but clear: defence cannot be exported. Those who outsource their security also give up the possibility of self-determination. And the price of giving up is always more expensive than one might first think.
The eighth anomaly is that trust in international institutions has been shaken. It is shaken across the world, and it is shaken in the Western institutions as well.
Such international institutions can essentially play two roles. Normally, they maintain order, enforce rules and manage disputes. But when there is a transition, a transformation in the international space, they have a different role: not to protect the status quo, not to defend it by force, but to manage the transition. They should provide a framework that reduces the chances of escalation and makes the transition fair and just.
We are now experiencing precisely such a transition – but some of the international institutions have failed to recognise this. They continue to try to maintain the old order by force, even though the conditions for it no longer exist. And where the cover behind reality is gone, sooner or later the legitimacy of the institutions will evaporate.
This is what happened with the International Criminal Court, which did not seek to keep this transformation on track, but rather tried to impose the logic of the old world order on the new. It simply does not work.
The ICC was originally set up to promote the just resolution of conflicts and the administration of justice. Several of its recent decisions show that they are politically motivated, acting in defence of the existing liberal status quo, rather than following the logic of genuine peace-building or equality of rights.
In the future, all these institutions will be put to the test. And only those that help rather than hinder the transition – that provide a framework, not impose an ideology – will survive.
The ninth anomaly is that within the Western world, not only in politics, but in every field, the capacity for progress and innovation is in decline. It is no longer true that the West innovates and the East copies. The competition has at the very least levelled out. Indeed, certain developments and innovations tend to come from the East now.
According to the latest figures, China registers more than twice as many patents in a year as the next nine countries combined. Including the US and Germany. Of the 50 largest technology clusters in the world, 22 are in the Far East, South East Asia, 12 in the US and 11 in Europe.
The neo-liberal order has now strangled the Western spirit in the economic, scientific and political domains. Unfortunately, if this remains the case, the advent of the new world order will bring with it a weaker West.
And finally, the tenth anomaly is that Western politics is unproductive. The liberal elites are incapable of coming up with innovative solutions. Indeed, it tries to deny the existence of problems. And when they do not deny it, their response is at best to carry on as before, preferably with more vigour.
The response of the liberal elites to the crisis of liberalism is that the West must become even more liberal. But is it sensible to expect that the principles that cause the problems will eventually, by some miracle, generate the solutions? I think not. One cannot but think of Albert Einstein’s famous quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
After all, when a paradigm fails, there are basically two possible answers to the question of how to proceed. One is to hold on, so that things can stay the same for as long as possible. The other answer is: everything must change so that everything stays the same. If one accepts Einstein’s premise, then the second path should be taken.
From this point of view, I think we can also assess the future of transatlantic cooperation. How the United States, on the other side of the pond, and Europe, still under the spell of the liberal world order, will respond to the changes that are taking place.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
In my perception, the United States on the other side of the Atlantic recognized relatively early on that the former world order had reached a crisis. With the return of Donald Trump, this realisation has also had international political consequences. The second term of the 45th President is not just a personal victory, but also a change of direction in foreign and domestic policy. The emphasis has shifted to national interests, to consolidating domestic stability and to rethinking global engagement. This will also fundamentally change the dynamics of transatlantic relations.
The new administration sees Europe as having departed from traditional Western values. Brussels and the liberal leaders of European nation states are imposing more and more restrictions on freedom of expression and democracy. European liberalism has taken on a decidedly authoritarian character. Meanwhile, unchecked illegal migration is reshaping traditional European cultural values, and the changing demographics are breaking down social frameworks.
The result is already visible. The continent’s economic performance has declined, and Europe’s strategy is based on flawed geopolitical assumptions. With undeniable signs of decline and stagnation, European citizens are increasingly turning away from their own political elites. This is their assessment of the situation.
It is no secret that we Hungarians have a similar assessment of the situation as the new US administration. We can feel the reality of the US Vice-President’s assessment of the situation, that he made two months ago, on our own skin. We struggle against the negative consequences for the Hungarian people of the misguided decisions made in Brussels. High energy prices, loss of competitiveness, inflation, all of these have come in Brussels’ bag, plus we are obliged to pay a daily penalty of €1 million for stopping illegal immigrants at our southern borders. That is why we at the Eastern end and the Americans on the other side of the Atlantic see things very similarly. In fact, I think the Atlantic idea has never been as strong in Hungary as it is today. The fact that the most popular foreign politician among Hungarians at the moment is Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, is a clear proof of this.
The two administrations are on the same wavelength, and the new US administration, like its Hungarian counterparts, does not support further deepening of European integration towards a federal system. This creates a good basis for cooperation between the United States and European governments – including Hungary – that prioritise the nation-state logic.
We need the logic of a Europe of Nations, because federalisation will only lead the old continent into more and more trouble. The British finally left the European Union precisely because of these centralising tendencies. The migration crisis has undermined the security of the continent. There is the Russian-Ukrainian war, energy prices are soaring, and the industry is no longer competitive. Here we are, with a war in the neighbourhood that Europe cannot and will not end.
And if that were not enough, its liberal elite, as we have been saying, does not feel the zeitgeist. It fails to see that the change of world order demands change in Europe too. They follow the path dictated by old principles. The answer to world order change is to keep things as they were. Moreover, Europe is welcoming the liberals who have been orphaned in America.
The Mayflower returns to European ports – this time as a political refugee. The liberal elite that has been squeezed out of American public life will find a new medium in the European institutions. The Commission, the majority of the Parliament, the Brussels bureaucracy will continue to cling to the principles that were replaced in the United States.
And it wants to unify the European Union along these old principles. It wants to solve the problems of centralisation by more centralisation. The more authority they take under their control, the more problems they will cause for Europe and for European cooperation.
That is why today the future of transatlantic cooperation lies in an alliance between the United States and those European countries that think in terms of a European Union, but one that is the Europe of nations. Brussels wants to burn the bridges across the ocean, while Hungary wants to reinforce them!
We are interested in shaping the new world order, we support President Trump in dismantling the neoliberal order. At the same time, we are also interested in a strong Europe, whose biggest obstacle today is the narrow-mindedness of the Brusselite leadership.
We also want change. But we are also aware of the risks of a rapid change. That is why we seek to play a mediating role, keeping the process on a steady course, ensuring that Hungary will be a winner in the decades ahead.
In this context, Hungarian diplomacy must take up the dynamism that this constantly changing context requires from us to balance and counterbalance – not according to old habits, but solely in our national interests. I would like to conclude this presentation by briefly touching on the cornerstones of this role.
First of all, Hungarian foreign policy must be based on realpolitik, and this realism must be spread in the Western world. The main reason for the failures of Western foreign policy in recent decades has been that everything was assessed solely on the basis of who was right in the moral dimension. This is an important consideration, but it can never be exclusive.
A successful foreign policy is known for being down to earth, starting from reality, from what is possible. To wish for the impossible on moral grounds alone is not enough for success. We Hungarians have always kept to this principle, and it is time to promote it even louder in the Western world and in Europe.
The second task of Hungarian foreign policy is related to Europe. Hungary is committed to build a stronger Europe. And this is not just a slogan, but a specific commitment. And we want to do it in alliance with other European countries. Despite all the rumours suggesting the contrary, Hungary has an extensive network of European alliances. There is no Hungarian policy position in which we are alone in the European Union. This includes a number of policy dimensions, but the most important one is defence. (Perhaps this is what is being discussed most at the moment.) We are in favour of strengthening European defence. This is nothing new. We have been advocating this since the mid-2000s. Even then we said: Europe needs its own military capabilities. I would only add in brackets that
At the time, we were heavily criticised for this. The liberal leadership in Washington and Brussels saw it as an anti-NATO provocation. They might try to deny it, but I still remember it, even if I am still a young man. It was seen as an anti-NATO provocation to argue for a stronger European army. But we did not back down. We started to develop the Hungarian armed forces, despite the criticism, and we did so by relying on the European defence industry. Swedish fighter jets, German defence technology factories, Hungarian military investments in the Czech Republic – we have been strengthening European defence capabilities at the practical level for a decade.
That being said, there are three areas where we cannot give ground by any means.
First, European armament must mean the strengthening of European countries and EU member states – it cannot mean the armament of Ukraine. Europe simply does not have the money to do the latter and, more importantly, if we were to make this an objective, it would obstruct the conclusion of the war and the achievement of peace. It must be recognised that the United States of America is no longer behind us, that this would not be acceptable to the Russians and that Europe cannot bear the costs on its own. Therefore, it is not sustainable and it is not practical to talk about arming Europe. So we say yes to strengthening Europe’s military capabilities, but that cannot mean arming countries outside the European Union.
Second, decisions on armament cannot be made at a supranational level in Brussels. It cannot be the competence of the Commission or any other body. The development of defence capabilities should be coordinated by the Member States, at Council level, not by the bureaucrats of the European Commission. We know exactly what happens when Brussels distributes the money: politically based distribution, double standards, as we have seen with the RRF funds. This cannot be allowed in defence policy – there we need stability and a careful balancing of power, and by that I mean balancing of power with a military dimension, not power games.
Nor do we fundamentally support Europe’s arming itself with a collective loan. Member state contributions yes, but a common loan should be off the table. We would say no, because we do not want a “Hamilton moment”. We must not take further steps towards deeper European integration on the grounds of security.
Thirdly, we are also opposed to Ukraine’s accession to the European Union in the present circumstances for the reasons outlined above. In its present form, it would weaken, not strengthen, the transatlantic community. Let there be peace first, then economic recovery. Europe will only be strong if its economic foundations are sound – and only this can provide a secure basis for military reinforcement. Ukraine’s EU membership would create a situation that would make it impossible to achieve all of Europe’s other economic and military objectives.
Of course, there is – and must be – a future for NATO in parallel with the development of Europe’s military capabilities. This is a clear baseline for Hungarian foreign policy. NATO is a defensive alliance that seeks to maintain peace, and Hungary is ready to play its part in strengthening it.
But NATO can only remain functional and credible if it does not exceed its own mandate. It must not become a confrontational organisation, and it must not become involved in conflicts in which its member states are not directly involved. This is not only a political issue, but also a strategic one: the survival and internal cohesion of the organisation depends on it.
In this respect, we believe that the new US administration is right to encourage European countries to respect the obligations of their NATO membership. This is not a political requirement, but a security minimum.
Europe must be able to defend itself in the coming world order. Not only is it important from a security perspective, but it also creates economic opportunities, especially in the defence industry, from which Hungary can also benefit considerably.
By contrast, we cannot agree with the liberal suggestions that NATO should also play a role outside the borders of the alliance. Nor is it acceptable for NATO to guarantee Ukraine’s security. This would be contrary to the fundamental purpose of the organisation and would seriously jeopardise lasting peace in Europe. Such a move would increase the risk of a conflict of global proportions for which the continent is not prepared, either militarily or economically.
Instead, NATO, the United States and its European allies should strive to create a new European security architecture. There is pressing need for an agreement in which NATO and Russia work together to guarantee the continent’s long-term stability. This is of strategic interest. Without peace, there can be no economic growth, and without growth, there can be no sustainable military development.
The length of this presentation alone indicates, and I will finish soon, that these are serious challenges, no matter which side of the Atlantic we approach the issue from. The most important thing is how we prepare for it.
We firmly believe, that only those who have a strategy can hope to be successful. Hungary has a strategy. It is called connectivity.
In our interpretation, this means that sovereignty is not an obstacle but a precondition for international cooperation. Those who are aware of their own interests and values can be a truly reliable partner – something that is increasingly recognised around the world.
Over the past fifteen years, we have pursued a consistent, predictable and respectful foreign policy. We have negotiated openly with East and West, North and South – always on the basis of national interests.
In the current state of the world, the West needs countries that do not seek conflict, but connectivity. Countries that can overcome different interpretations of the world and understand multiple languages – not only literally, but also geopolitically.
Today Hungary is virtually the only Western country capable of playing such a mediating role. We have good contacts in Washington, Beijing and among leaders in the Global South. And this is not the result of chance, but of conscious diplomacy developed over many years.
The stabilising role, the support for patriotic policies, economic neutrality and connectivity – these are not slogans, they are the true pillars of Hungarian foreign policy.
We are well aware that this role – originally – is not tailor-made for smaller countries. But that is precisely why we dare to say that there is no other way for us. Not because we are ambitious, but because there is no reasonable alternative. Western European politics is headed in the wrong direction at the moment. The world is increasingly falling apart, and the world is in need of someone, of certain countries that can show some common sense.
Our country is working for this interconnectedness – politically, economically and in transatlantic relations as well. In this new era (according to my conviction) this can be our national contribution to a stable world order.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
