12 October 2012
Hungarian Institute of International Affairs

The fact is that in the last two years we had been speaking a lot about the subject you are discussing today. So I do not really want to repeat all these, I think very well-known, developments we frequently refer to.  Actually, this is for us a time of crossing. On the one hand, there have been, there are tremendous changes in the world, in the world economy, in the political situation. We are all aware of that and now of course we all have to adapt in one way or another to these developments.

On the other hand, there is also a change in Hungarian foreign policy, or indeed in the Hungarian mission on the world, because of the twenty-twenty two years of essentially internal and all-European development we now want to open up. And that is why we now identify as part of our foreign policy the so-called global opening.

In that framework of the global opening, no doubt, the Eastern dimension plays a predominant role. We say look East, we also have to act East. That is why we organize this awareness forum. That is why we have this business forum today. That is why we have been many things in the last couple of months. I visited the region myself twice and I am now heading for the Vientiane EU-ASIAN summit. And we tried to visit as many countries as we can, and at the same time we tried to give a political push to the trade and economic developments.

We also know that in this country Asia plays a special role. Not only because of those developments I just referred to, but because Hungarians are quite proud of their Asian origin and heritage, it is one of our roots. I think many Asian nations realize that. Wherever we go, we always sense this kind of affinity or sympathy or closeness of minds. So, it is not only trade and investment, and economic advantages or benefits we are searching for in Asia. We also want to open our minds towards Asia. Asia is not just a five-billion-people rapidly developing market. It is five billion human beings, who contribute more and more to the global development of all of us. And for us, Hungarians, this is a specific aspect of all that.

I do not want to speak too much about the economic potentials, because you will speak about that yourselves, but clearly the potential we see.

In the EU-ASEAN framework, because let us come now to ASEAN as the main subject after all, which is not five billion people, but only six hundred million people.  We often said before that of course Asia as a whole is very important, but ASEAN countries are even more important, at least in one respect, because of their diversity. There are a lot of commonalities between Europe as a whole and ASEAN countries.  On the one hand, you are five hundred million, the EU is six hundred million. Of course, as integration schemes, European Union is much more advanced, but the objectives and the goals of ASEAN are very similar to the European ones.  There is a lot of exchange of experience and use. And at the same time, as you know, we are now negotiating FTAs, free trade agreements with some of the ASEAN countries.  Some of them are well-advanced and at least one of them will really come to an end by the end of this year. These FTAs are considered to be so called stepping stones for a final agreement, that is an agreement between Europe and ASEAN and that would be of course a concrete result of all these separate exercises.

We, Hungarians on our part very much encourage and support these negotiations. We analyzed of course our economic interest, potential benefits and potential challenges or risks, which are possibly involved in some free trade agreements. And the conclusion, the outcome is that yes, we support this because that is also our interest.

Relations between European Union and ASEAN are now developing. They are developing fast. At the same time, relations between ASEAN and Hungary are also developing very fast. This is a two-track approach. We encourage both and we also try to do whatever we can to achieve this objective. Just an example: we did have Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, general secretary of ASEAN this year, at the end of August, at our so-called ambassador’s conference. This is a yearly event.  In the last roughly eight-to-ten years we always had a foreign guest, a guest speaker. Up till now this person has always been somebody from Europe, from the European Union. For the first time this year this special guest of the ambassador’s conference was somebody coming from outside Europe. Dr. Pitsuwan made, by the way, an excellent speech. There was a lively debate or discussion after that speech. This was in itself a testimony to our political message, which is: to strengthen and deepen relations with ASEAN.

I would conclude here. I understand that yesterday you had very good speeches, also instructive and interesting debates or discussions after those speeches. I just would like to encourage you to continue it today from a more business-like perspective. This is the purpose of today’s business forum.  But never forget, again, about the human dimension of this. Trade and investment are extremely important aims, but even more important are the human relations, which are thereby established and strengthened. Maybe this is our contribution to a safer and better world.

So I thank you very much. I wish you a very successful business forum and as I said I have to apologize for being away from the rest of the forum.

(Külügyminisztérium)