Changes in the world over the past few years have forced both the US and Europe to tighten their cooperation, Réka Szemerkényi, chief advisor to the Hungarian prime minister told a conference entitled ’Foreign and security policy challenges in the new world order’ in Budapest on Wednesday.

The redistribution of the energy markets and the heightened importance of cyber security are reasons for likeminded countries to coordinate their policies and strategies, Szemerkényi told the conference organised by the Antall József Knowledge Centre, an independent think tank based in Budapest.

The Transatlantic community, which shares identical interests, will remain dominant in the long term, she added. The conference has brought together academic experts and policymakers from Europe, the US, China and Hungary to discuss developments and key questions in the changing distribution of power in the world.

Tamás Magyarics, a former university professor and Hungary's ambassador to Ireland, said the perception of terrorist threat varies country by country, and the higher the number of member states in an international organisation, the more difficult the task is to harmonise their positions.

Speakers at two panel discussions include Ambassador Kurt Volker, former US Ambassador to NATO, Jeffrey D. Gordon, former spokesperson for the US Defence Department, Dr Ye Jiang, Director of the Shanghai Institute for Global Governance Studies, Dr Stefan Friedrich, team head at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Károly Gruber, Hungary's Ambassador to the EU's Political and Security Committee amongst others. The Antall József Knowledge Centre was set up in 2010 and was named after the first prime minister of Hungary's multiparty democracy (1990-1993).

(MTI)