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Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Prime Minister Kobakhidze, Dear Georgian Friends,
We need more meetings like this. It has been a long time since I received a delegation from Europe with such an obvious reason to rejoice as our Georgian friends have. There is no need to be surprised at this – just look at the figures. Everyone envies them, including us: 7 per cent economic growth – wow!; falling public debt and the deficit under control; equally good prospects for next year. It is meetings like this that really give one strength. Thank you very much, Prime Minister, for bringing us your optimism and your results – because these results were achieved by our guests today not in a tailwind, but in a headwind. It would be easy with a tailwind, but the wind is blowing in their faces, just as it is blowing in ours, in Hungarians’ faces. This is because the Prime Minister won an election not so long ago, just as we won in 2022, and the global liberal mainstream has been doing everything in its power to prevent them and us from having governments that are right for our peoples. And our guests today have achieved these fantastic successes while still enduring attacks from Brussels, simply because the Georgian government is on the side of peace: they do not want to be dragged into a war, they want to stay out of it, they are standing up for their sovereignty, and they are proudly saying that their country comes first. We have that element, but we just do not have 7 per cent economic growth yet. But I am confident that we will have that too.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Hungary will stand up for Georgia’s sovereignty not only in bilateral relations, but we will also stand up for it on the European stage. We empathise with their situation, and in fact we regard our guests today as true patriotic heroes. They are led by the Prime Minister, whom we can confidently claim to be a kindred spirit sharing our fate, who has to fight day in, day out for success, independence and sovereignty. Completely independently of Brussels’ opinion, we have agreed to give Georgia every assistance on its path towards the European Union. From September we will be training fifty Georgian civil servants here in Hungary, passing on our experience to them, and we will even send a Hungarian governmental expert over there.
We have reviewed the economic situation and economic cooperation. Here again, we owe a debt of gratitude to our friends from Georgia. The Hungarian airline Wizz Air is the market leader in their country, with flights to 28 destinations from Georgian hubs. Our trade volume is at a record high, exceeding 100 million dollars for the first time. This is particularly important for Hungary, because a large part of this is Hungarian pharmaceutical products which they buy from us, and thus we can contribute to the health care of the Georgian people. In the working committees we also discussed energy cooperation. We have a joint energy programme, in which five countries are participating, and which the Bulgarians have just joined. This cooperation has also been established with the Romanians and the Azeris. Now there are five of us, and through this system we want to import green electricity produced in the Caucasus to Hungary and the European Union. There are particularly good reasons to keep energy cooperation on the agenda. There are two examples to the east of us: there are the Ukrainians, who are closing energy transport routes; and there is our example, and we are building pipelines and connections and allowing free passage and flow for economic activity. We will continue to take such decisions with our Georgian friends in the future, and the prospects for economic cooperation are very good.
If the Prime Minister will allow me, I must also devote a few words to the unprecedented incident yesterday, in which the Ukrainians openly and aggressively threatened Hungary in a particularly blackmailing tone. They made it clear that they will not accept the Hungarian people making a decision on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union – and they will certainly not accept it if the decision is negative. This is why they are threatening, blackmailing and attacking us. We must reject this. The Ukrainians owe Hungary a debt of gratitude. We have never said this, but it is the truth. We allowed their refugees to pass through Hungary. We have allowed them to use all of Hungary’s public services, we have fed them, we have treated their soldiers, and we have educated their children. So our suggestion to the President of Ukraine is that instead of threatening and blackmailing, he should thank the Hungarians and show his respect for Hungary.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have agreed with the Prime Minister that we will continue the strategic cooperation between our two countries. This is the second joint government meeting: they hosted the first one, and we are hosting the second one. We have assigned tasks to the working groups, and the third joint Georgian–Hungarian intergovernmental meeting will take place within a year.
Prime Minister, Dear Georgian Guests,
I would also like to thank you in front of the Hungarian public for coming here and for being good friends and strategic partners of Hungary.
Thank you very much.
