In an interview with Hungarian political daily Magyar Nemzet, Chief of the General Staff Gábor Böröndi highlighted the new capabilities Hungary is contributing to NATO’s collective defence, and the extent to which the experience of the Russo-Ukrainian war has changed procurement plans and objectives.
Besides supporting EU’s EDIRPA and ASAP initiatives, Hungary has also been participating in joint capacity building and procurement programmes with France and Germany.
In a statement issued today, the Fidesz EP group has announced its support for the new common procurement act (EDIRPA) proposed in the European Parliament. The act would allocate €300 million in funds to ‘incentivise the joint procurement of urgent and critical defence products needed in the context of the response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.’
From the inception of post-Soviet Hungary, East Asian relations have been oriented towards trade as well as knowledge and information exchange. With the opening up of the Hungarian economy, foreign direct investment (FDI) began to flow in from Taiwan, China, and India, and was widely distributed over a diverse range of sectors including finance, retail, mining, and those that this article focuses on: automotive manufacturing and logistics.
‘Big companies are coming to Hungary with R&D budgets that are significant in themselves. Rheinmetall, for one, is the twenty-fourth largest company in the world’, Hungarian Ministerial Commissioner Imre Porkoláb underlined in a recent interview.
The Prime Minister stated that both the European and Hungarian economies are influenced by the Russo-Ukrainian war. If the war were to end, both economies could show their ‘better side.’
With the recent large-scale build-up of the national defence industry, Hungary is not only ensuring its own military equipment supply, but also contributing to the development of European defence industrial capabilities and thus enhancing the EU’s security.
In addition to the French initiative, Hungary has also joined the German-initiated Sky Shield programme, which will further enhance its capabilities through joint procurement.
In the CEE region, only Romania and the Czech Republic are ahead of Hungary in terms of the strength of their military. This is a quite notable achievement given that in 2010, the Hungarian Defence Forces were still lagging behind the Serbian, Austrian, and even the Slovak and Croatian armed forces.
‘Force transformation is a never-ending task, we have to continuously adapt to the changing environment and be at the forefront of preparing for the future,’ the Hungarian Ministry of Defence highlighted.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
