‘We need strength for peace,’ Minister of Defence Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky of Hungary wrote in a Facebook post on Monday, 3 June. In the same post, he announced the procurement of two Leopard 2A7HU main battle tanks and driver training tanks. The new German-made vehicles will be added to the fleet of the 1st György Klapka Armoured Brigade of the Hungarian Defence Forces. The unit is garrisoned in Tata, Komárom-Esztergom County, in the northwestern part of Hungary.
This is all part of the modernization project of the Hungarian Defence Forces,
which was started back in 2016 by former Minister of Defence István Simicskó under the name ‘Zrínyi 2026’. Its aim is to make the Hungarian armed forces one of the most technically advanced in terms of equipment and infrastructure in the region by 2026, hence the number in the name. Meanwhile, Miklós Zrínyi was a Croatian–Hungarian military leader, statesman, and poet in the 17th century who was involved in the fight to keep Ottoman forces out of Europe.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the consequent Russo–Ukrainian war, military spending has been even more prioritized in the Hungarian national budget. Last year, in 2023, Hungary spent 2.34 per cent of its annual GDP on defence, above the two-per-cent threshold that all member states of NATO have committed to. According to the 2024 budget plan accepted by the National Assembly in the spring of 2023, defence spending will remain above 2 per cent of the GDP this year as well.
The last news of a major procurement of military vehicles by the Hungarian Defence forces came in February 2024, with the announcement of the purchase of four JAS 39 Gripen fighter planes.
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