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At a press conference held after his talks with the Serbian President, the Hungarian Prime Minister said the stability of the Balkans region is connected to the stability of Serbia, while Serbia is stable if it has a strong and firm leadership; therefore, in the person of Aleksandar Vucic we also pay tribute to a champion of Balkans stability.
Mr Orbán recalled that during the day the Serbian head of state had received the highest Hungarian state decoration from the Hungarian president of the republic.
The Prime Minister said this is not the first time that the historical challenges of the Serbian and Hungarian nations coincide. There were leaders who recognised this, and there others who did not.
Today, we celebrate the fact that Serbia has a president who recognised this, and acted accordingly; he shaped Serbian-Hungarian relations equally regarding the issues of migration, military security and energy security, he observed.
Mr Orbán stressed that there was no Hungarian energy security without Serbia, and there was no Serbian energy security without Hungary.
The Prime Minister said intensive preparations for the construction of an oil pipeline of the length of 300 kilometres between Serbia and Hungary are ongoing. He added that the pipeline would serve the energy security of both countries.
He said last year 7.5 billion cubic metres of gas came to Hungary via Serbia without which it would not have been possible to guarantee either the functioning of the Hungarian economy, or the security of Hungarian households. He observed that this was a record amount, two billion cubic metres more than a year earlier.
He said they are also working hard to double the volume of power connections between the two countries.
Mr Orbán took the view that the two countries achieved these results despite the fact that in recent years they had been “compelled to work in a headwind.” “Everyone knows about the destabilisation attempts that have been made both in Serbia and Hungary,” how “they’re trying to put pressure on our countries by turning the money taps off or through the activities of NGOs, but we have achieved great results even in such a headwind,” he stated.
Now, world politics has changed; “we’re moving forward with a tailwind,” and this year “we will break new records” equally in trade, investments and developments in the border areas.
Mr Orbán further spoke about the fact that Serbia was an exceedingly successful country where there had been a 9 per cent real wage increase. He observed that in this “amicable race” Hungary had managed to keep up with its neighbour. Serbia has a 4 per cent economic growth, he said in continuation, adding that “we would have liked such a growth ourselves […], but this year we will make every effort to decrease our shortfall.”
“Today, we Hungarians see Serbia as one of Europe’s most successful countries, but perhaps even its most successful one,” the Prime Minister stated, stressing that Serbia has successfully resisted the pressure weighing heavily on it, and so “has not slid into the war which we hope will soon be over.”
Mr Orbán indicated that he especially appreciated the fact that Serbia conducted 40 per cent of its trade not with the European Union, describing this as an outstanding achievement. Serbia is implementing a successful connectivity strategy, has managed to build significant economic relations in every direction, and so their system is much more balanced than ours, he said, remarking that we regard this as a model to follow.
In answer to a question relating to the planned pipeline, Mr Orbán described the project as one of strategic significance.
Energy is a circulatory system which if stopped also causes the economy to die, he said, adding that – regardless of expert calculations in the strict sense of the term – this project is in the number one spot among Hungarian strategic investments because there may be moments when “our life will depend on it.”
In answer to another question, the Prime Minister said, without interfering with any other country’s internal affairs, he will always stand up against any destabilisation attempts experienced in the region. “We are not blind. What’s happening in Slovakia, in Serbia is not happening of its own accord, it’s being done, it’s being generated,” he pointed out.
He added that destabilisation is bad for everyone because if – rather than the people living here deciding what should happen to them – people from outside want to dictate to them, that can only lead to trouble as history has shown. Therefore, we must stand up for our sovereignty, he said.
He also spoke about the fact that there are challenges in the world even greater than the Russo-Ukrainian war, and he is convinced that the Russo-Ukrainian war will not be concluded by talks confined to the topic of the Russo-Ukrainian war itself.
There will be such talks as well, he said in continuation, but prior to those talks the world’s great powers will negotiate with one another about the future, energy prices, technological issues and trade. The Russo-Ukrainian war, too, will be considered in that wider context, he observed.
Mr Orbán said it is painful that the Europeans will be informed about developments from the media because the leaders of Europe’s large countries missed the moment when they could have taken the initiative on the issue of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
In his view, the European institutions are incapable of initiative, “they’re only capable of the daily grind.”
He said in the past three years, Europe’s large countries should have taken steps towards peace on multiple occasions, but they got stuck on the side of war. Therefore, now they can only observe from outside how, in the context of other overarching world affairs, the affairs that are the most important for us are being taken care of without us, he pointed out.
Regarding Serbian-Hungarian relations, Mr Orbán quoted from the film ‘Gladiator,’ “Whatever comes out of those gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together.”
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