Instead of crisis management, Hungary’s government aims to produce economic growth and boost employment, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a meeting of diplomatic missions in Budapest on Monday.
Orban said the global crisis was the economic accompaniment to the development of a new world order which was unfavourable to Europe and Hungary. The economic significance of the West will decline, and Hungary must make every effort to boost its economic role in the new environment, he added. He added that the West should negotiate a “compromise” with Russia.
Orban said Hungary’s political life is stable, comprising his centrist government, flanked by radical left and a radical right opposition forces.
He said he expected Hungary’s foreign policy to become more proactive and courageous in the future. This approach will be reflected in the talks with the International Monetary Fund, he added. Orban also said that Hungarian diplomacy would have to focus on developing new networks for cooperation.
The agreement with the IMF had been in Hungary’s interest, but this was a loan and not about cooperation in economic policy, Orban said. In the area of economic cooperation, Hungary needs the European Union, he added.
The Hungarian government makes a clear position against segregation, Orban said. Political extremism, segregation or anti-Semitism are “impermissible”; the government will “criticise, attack, suppress and remove” any such phenomenon, Orban said.
Socialist MP and former foreign minister Laszlo Kovacs, who was present at the meeting, told MTI afterwards that his party was ready to contribute to the national consensus which he called indispensable for the success of Hungarian diplomacy. However, he added that the government should not use “high-sounding slogans” expected to attract voters as a basis for the country’s foreign policy. Kovacs also called on the foreign ministry to stop the “political cleansing” of dismissing “masses” of experienced diplomats.