Central European cooperation can be the guarantee for changing the EU, said the Minister for European Union Affairs at the Central European Summit, an international conference organised by the Center for Fundamental Rights and the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation in Várkert Bazár.
According to MTI, János Bóka stressed that European states and citizens who believe in nation states must work together. “We joined the European Union (EU) to guarantee the existence of nation states in the 21st century, in the age of global superpowers,” the minister said, adding that currently the EU is not serving the purpose for which we joined it. There are no internal control processes, no guarantees on the competences of nation states, and the principle of subsidiarity is not taken seriously by the EU institutions or the EU court, he explained.
János Bóka pointed out that the changes in the United States are very promising, as transatlantic relations are crucial for the future of the Central European region. “If there is a strong transatlantic relationship between the US and Central Europe, it can set the future of European integration in a positive direction,” he said.
According to the minister, European integration is currently about a centre and a periphery fighting each other. Anyone who joins the EU must accept that it is the French and Germans who decide, everything is up to them, he said. He added that this is a unilateral process of adaptation, and that Hungary joined the EU precisely to add its own values, political and sociological models to the EU. “Nations are valuable entities, we believe that sovereign nation states are indispensable,” the minister said.
He also pointed out that the V4 was a very successful initiative, which has so far also served as a successful lobbying tool. He stressed that in many areas – such as cohesion, competitiveness, energy, migration or agriculture – there is a “strong, united Central European platform”, despite the fact that we are not identical.
“We believe that within the European Union we can be united in diversity and exist peacefully,” said János Bóka, who concluded that the future of Central Europe is not written, “our brightest days are still ahead of us.”
Miklós Szánthó, Director General of the Center for Fundamental Rights said that it is in the interest of the Central European region that the Trump administration pay “special, but positive, friendly attention” to it. “This region is also a cultural community, where freedom, democracy and the political stability they underpin are values,” he said. In his words, the American conservative mindset shows the greatest overlap with that of Central Europe: “God, country, family.”
Miklós Szánthó stressed that the greatest threat to Central Europe is not from Russia or China, but from within: that our continent is turning against its own fundamental values. The Director General pointed out that if the people living here and their democratically elected leaders do not decide what should be done, but it is dictated from outside or in a way that serves external forces, this has always been a recipe for trouble. He also said that Brussels is using financial blackmail against Hungary for political and ideological reasons, with the obvious intention that the dissatisfaction caused by the resulting deteriorating living standards will strengthen the opposition and lead to the downfall of the right. “I believe that in the struggle between globalists and sovereignists, Washington and Budapest are on the same side today, and that today the most natural allies of right-wing, populist America are here in Central Europe,” said Miklós Szánthó. He said he hoped Tuesday’s conference would show that “the key to Europe’s future is here.”
Péter Törcsi warned that Europe is in trouble, because in addition to the coronavirus pandemic and the war, it has not even recovered from the 2008 economic crisis. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation pointed out that while America is good at innovation, Europe is good at regulation, which they want to force down our throats on an ideological basis, in a planned economy-like way.
He admitted that Donald Trump’s tariffs indeed pose a challenge. But the interesting thing, he said, is that Western Europe was surprised by these measures, while Central Europe had prepared for them.
That is why he believed that Central Europe must have a major seat at the negotiating table to bring back the golden age of America and Europe.
Foreign policy expert, journalist, press officer. He was a foreign policy journalist and editor for fourteen years, mainly at Magyar Nemzet. He specializes in the Middle East and North Africa. As a journalist, he has visited several countries and conflict zones in the region. He has reported from Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, but he has also visited Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabak, and Cyprus.
