Hungary's European and transatlantic relations are "undisputed" and there has not been any shift in the country's foreign policy orientation, MFA Deputy State Secretary Gergely Prőhle said on Tuesday.

The government's strategy of opening to the East is about making the best possible use of the entire palette of foreign and trade relations, Gergely Prőhle declared at a conference organised by the Joint Venture Association.

It is clear that throughout Europe every country has sought to diversify its economic, trade and energy relations in order to emerge from the economic crisis, the Deputy State Secretary said.  However, skepticism about the "workings of the European project on the whole" is rising across the 28-member bloc, he said. Doubts, too, are apparent over the extent to which solidarity, one of the basic values and driving principles of European cooperation, can be undertaken in the future, he added.

On the subject of cooperation among EU countries, Mr Prőhle said that small nations regard the emergence of cooperation such as the Visegrad Four (V4), over which Hungary currently presides, as important in terms of promoting European interests. Cooperation within the V4 on intensifying economic cooperation is especially important, since the four countries  can mobilise resources together which they could not alone, he said. Developing infrastructure across the V4 and connecting their energy networks are the two key components of Hungary's V4 presidency, he added.

Deputy State Secretary Prőhle said that LPG terminals currently under construction in Poland and Croatia will not pave the way for Hungary to decouple from Russian gas supplies, but linking the V4 countries' gas and electricity networks will allow it "greater room for manoeuvre." This could greatly influence Hungary's ability to attract capital and channel renewable energy into its network, he said. "The more pipes and cables that run through the country under the V4 cooperation, the better off we are," he added.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)