25 Nov

It is deplorable that Brussels is blocking investment in EU member states, when the war in Ukraine and the recession caused by sanctions could only be avoided by investments in EU member states, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Friday.


At a press conference following a meeting of EU trade ministers, the minister said that investment promotion was the way out of the crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic in Hungary, and that it is necessary now to maintain economic growth. "Investment will create jobs, jobs will create production, production will create economic growth," he said.

"By contrast, what the European Commission is doing is rather deplorable (...) We have broken records in recent years in vain, and we could have more investments if the European Commission did not hinder it," he added.

Mr Szijjártó reminded that under the current rules, EU member states can grant up to €37.5 million in aid from their own resources without Brussels' approval; above that approval is required.

He said that in the current situation, this requirement should be suspended, especially as approval procedures take an unacceptably long time, often more than a year.

"We Hungarians have an approval procedure to give our own money for job creation in Hungary, which has been before the European Commission for four years," he stressed. "This is unacceptable in peacetime, even under normal circumstances, and it is extremely damaging to European competitiveness," he underlined.

He added: "This rule is delaying hundreds of millions of euros of investments in Europe, putting hundreds or thousands of jobs at risk.

"While the European Commission is not giving Hungary the money it is entitled to, they are preventing us from using our own money to finance job creation," he said.

The minister also referred to the trade conflicts between the European Union and the United States, saying that the war in Ukraine and the sanctions were pushing the European economy into recession.

"In the world economy, the European Union is currently on the losing side (...) And it is very clear who is profiting from the suffering of the European economy," he said.

"The position and competitiveness of the US economy has certainly improved in the last period, the European economy's move into recession is good news for the US economy and it seems that the Americans have been able to benefit from it," he said.

He said that the US Inflation Reduction Act, the discrimination against European electric cars and the tariffs on aluminium were all measures that "raise quite strong suspicions of a breach of the rules that govern the global economy".

He said that while the European Commission is in constant consultation on the matter, and does rightly so, there is no realistic chance of the legislation being repealed or amended, and the EU should do likewise, supporting its own economy and companies.

Source: MTI - Hungarian News Agency