Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó talked about the criticism Hungary has been facing, foreign investors, energy policy, and Hungary’s space program in The bold truth about Hungary podcast.
The volume of foreign investments breaks records every year, proving that despite the “liberal mainstream” criticism Hungary is facing, progressive liberalism is not the only successful model, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Zoltán Kovács, State Secretary for International Communication, in his podcast The bold truth about Hungary.
Szijjártó said that people who make substantive decisions regarding investments, base their decisions on facts, not on what foreign newspapers write about the Hungarian government. He said the government has never discriminated against investors, and that the only thing they are asked to do is to respect Hungarian law. The minister pointed out that Hungary has an exceptionally strong position outside Europe, both economically and politically, which is clearly confirmed by the results.
Speaking about the war, the Minister said the government “has always managed to maintain a pragmatic relationship with Russia.” “This allows us to tell them frankly what we think about the situation,” he added.
According to Szijjártó, the “war is causing a lot of damage, a lot of difficulties for us, for Europe. The sanctions are also causing us a lot of difficulties and a lot of damage.” “Therefore, the best solution would be to end the war and start negotiations, but without dialogue, without open channels of communication, this is not possible,” he concluded.
On the Hungarian space program, the Minister said that after more than 40 years, it is time for another Hungarian astronaut to go into space (Bertalan Farkas and Valery Kubasov went into space in 1980). Szijjártó pointed out that this would provide an opportunity to conduct experiments and test solutions that could help the economy grow in the future.
He said they are working with the US company Axiom to send an astronaut into space, who will be selected from hundreds of applicants. Now down to eight, they are currently being tested by the Air Force and the next round will leave four who will undergo full training to decide who will go into space just before the launch.
Featured photo via Facebook/Kovács Zoltán