Only Innovative Policies can be Successful in the Future

First of all, congratulations on last year's excellent decision; we know what we're referring to.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Before going in to what I would like to say, I would first of all like to continue where President Beccalli-Falco left off. And I would like to say to the Hungarian workers, employees, staff, or however we may refer to them, who work here that we are very proud of them. Because the cooperation between Hungary and General Electric is a fantastic success story, and everyone who has just spoken here has testified to the fact that this [success] has one single, clear prerequisite, and that is the talent, commitment and working capacity of the Hungarians who work here. And so if there exists a success story that Hungary can proudly pin onto its chest for the world to see, then the history of GE in Hungary is the definitive Hungarian success story, which is in no small part thanks to the Hungarians who work here. Let me repeat once again: we are very proud of you! And we needed your success, because we have here this affliction that has grown onto our backs like a camel's hump, and which – understandably in view of the historical antecedents – concerns the fact that the Hungarians are doomed to failure, that we shouldn't even try and we shouldn't attempt anything big, because it is set down in the book of fate that although we may be talented, we are mediocre and our successes can only be mediocre at best. The history of GE in Hungary speaks of exactly the opposite. If we have good partners, the Hungarians can be successful. I would like to say to President Beccalli-Falco, linking to his thoughts on the European Union, that in one of the verses of one of our famous poets there is a line that concerns the fact that one should measure oneself in comparison to the universe. This means that one should not make do with – to bring things up-to-date – what you are capable of at home and what represents an achievement here at home, but one should also strive to be successful in an international, global comparison. This is in all the Hungarian literature textbooks. GE is a good opportunity for the Hungarians, for a good many of them, to measure themselves in comparison to the universe. And President Beccalli-Falco is correct in saying that the European Union, especially now, when it is providing such a slow and annoyingly meticulous reaction to the problems caused by the European crisis, well, we have good reason to criticise the Brussels bureaucrats, the decision-makers and so on. But as the President said, it is good to remember that we have much greater opportunities available within the European Union than we would have outside it; there are always many more arguments in favour of being members of the European Union than there are arguments against it. And so when we complain about the slowness of European crisis management, we do so because we want to improve the European Union. It is very important to note that Central Europe – because Hungary is not the only one in this situation, but there are a few other Central European countries too – wants to improve the EU, it wants to remain within the European Union and achieve a higher level of political and leadership performance within that environment.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The location we are at here today is an interesting one. When I got out of the car, I asked myself, can this possibly be the same Váci Road, "whose job it is to reply to 'red' Csepel, who leads the struggle". This is what we were taught in school. To explain things to you, Mr. President, we are talking about a communist worker's movement song that says the people must revolt against the capitalists, and if possible do away with them altogether, that would be best. The people must take away their assets, and this struggle must be begun and led by a big workers' quarter, "red" Csepel, and the workers of the large factories here [on Váci Road] must reply to their call. This is usually what the people of my generation are reminded of when we think of Váci Road. How the world has changed! As President Beccalli-Falco said, GE has been sticking to Hungary through thick and thin for 25 years, and the last possible thought that could ever come to our minds with relation to this fact is how we should struggle against GE, GE's owner and its capitalists. Our first thought is how we might come to an agreement with them to create a win-win situation in which everyone benefits, and as we have just heard: so GE's shareholders benefit, so the people who work here benefit too, and so Hungarian industry and the Hungarian economy can also benefit. I would like to thank President Beccalli-Falco for the fact that GE has stood by Hungary unrelentingly for the past 25 years and serves as a firm example of the fact we should not fight against each other but instead cooperate – capital and workers, shareholders and employees. This is where the future lies. I would also like to mention the fact that, in contrast to many other stories of privatisation, when GE privatised Tungsram it was not a corporation who wanted to close the factory, it didn't want to purchase the market, and it's primary thought wasn't how to get rid of the people who work here, but instead it strived to create a world-class, modern factory. I must add that the starting point wasn't exactly bad; we perhaps owe this much to our parents and our grandparents, who worked in these factories. This was a high performance, recognised factory, but which GE took into the 21st century, into the new era, the new era of technologic development, which we are living in today.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to repeat the most important figures, so we can all gain encouragement from them. GE has 13,700 employees in Hungary. It is the country's largest American investor. It has three divisions here and of the 21 factories it has within the region, 12 are operating here. Most importantly: in 2012 GE worked with 2000 Hungarian suppliers. It acquired services and goods worth 900 million dollars from these 2000 Hungarian suppliers and as such it doubled the value of services and goods purchased by GE in Hungary, meaning it increased both the volume and number of its local suppliers by almost 50%. This means, Ladies and Gentlemen, and this is the essence of our cooperation, that in the case of GE the ratio of domestic suppliers exceeds 65%, and we can call this nothing other than fantastic; this is exactly what we require.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

And now, President Beccalli-Falco will perhaps allow me to at least state that the Hungarian economy is stable at a macroeconomic level. We are celebrating a corporate success today, but let us also mention the fact that the environment in which the company operates is an improving one. It is an environment that is increasingly encouraging and improving during a very difficult period of European crisis. Nobody would have thought this possible a few years ago when we were in pretty serious trouble. The President is obviously unaware of this, but in 2010 we were often mentioned in the same sentence as Greece when people discussed the future of the countries of Europe. Everyone was worried about financial collapse and bankruptcy, and yet now we have reached the stage where the economic data for the last quarter show that the Hungarian economy is growing the fastest within the Central European region. This is an achievement that, in view of the fact that during the past ten years the other Central European countries have passed us by and overtaken us, very few people were expecting. Luckily, the members of the Government were among those who counted on achieving these excellent results and who in fact also believed it was possible, and this is how we succeeded in achieving them.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

And finally, the other thing I would like to say to President Beccalli-Falco is that this investment will result in new jobs for another 1300 highly-trained professionals. 1300 new jobs are being created, and this means that the position of the Hungarians will also improve within GE itself. Somebody mentioned during the panel discussion here that it wasn't simply decided on to affect this investment here in Hungary, but that, if I understood the English text correctly, there was a kind of competition within GE about which of the company's possible centres this service centre would be established in. And we won this competition, or rather the people who work here won this competition and earned this opportunity; it didn't just drop out of the sky and into their laps, but they worked hard for it and earned it, and on this I would like to congratulate them.
And lastly, respected Mr. President, I would like GE to continue to have confidence in Hungary in the future. I know that in the modern world the leading role is played by novelties: new adventures, new partners, new cooperation, new friends, but I would like to tell you that in Hungary, old ones are also important. It is also important that we reinforce old friendships, that we retain our old friends, and that we also be capable of renewing our cooperation with old friends. Our friendship is an old friendship, and no matter what trendy fashions appear, I would like the marriage between GE and Hungary to last for as long as possible, and the Hungarian Government is deeply committed to making this so.

Dear Mr. President,

And finally: the crisis has not lessened our resolve. You are a leader like me, and in fact you have been one for much longer than I have, and so you know even better than I do that there are two ways to respond to a crisis. Either one says that this is a huge calamity, we are in big trouble, or one says that we are standing on the threshold of a great opportunity. If I remember rightly, it is an old story, it was Edison's house that burned down and all of his research notes and equipment were lost, all of his possessions were destroyed, and the next morning he stood looking at the smouldering ruins and he said, there is one good side to this fire: it destroyed all of our errors. And a few weeks later he invented the radio, the phonograph, or whatever that device was called in those days. The point being that the crisis cleanses us, expurgates us, burns away all of our errors. It makes it clear that the steps that led us to this point cannot continue to be used in the future, and so it inspires us to find new solutions. This is perhaps relatively easy at a corporate level and is more difficult in politics, but this is how we viewed the crisis here in Hungary. And we received heavy criticism as a result, but I firmly believe that, in a situation such as the one Europe is in now, only innovative policies can lead us out of the crisis and the Hungarian examples, the Hungarian figures and the Hungarian data are an encouraging sign that this is indeed true. We shall see how enduring they are, but I am convinced that only innovative leadership policies can be successful in the future.

And luckily, dear Mr. President, this kind of innovative thinking is right up our street. I assume that you are perhaps less aware of Hungarian history than we are, although you will now have the opportunity to become much more familiar with it. This is the nature of Hungarian women: they are proud to be Hungarian. Anyway, the fact is that, after all, the Hungarians are responsible for having discovered and invented quite a few things, because we like totally novel approaches and ideas. The punched card computer system, for instance, was invented by a Hungarian, Neumann. We use it every day, although it is beginning to go out of fashion: the ballpoint pen was also invented by a Hungarian. And I would by no means like to insult our Italian guests, but I'm afraid the Illy family is also Hungarian, which means that the espresso coffee machine was also invented by a Hungarian engineer, and the reason we drink Italian coffee is because a brave Hungarian engineer who joined the army ended up in Trieste during the First World War and married an Italian lady, and this is how the coffee machine came into being.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Italian-Hungarian cooperation also has its tangible, positive examples. American-Hungarian cooperation has its positive examples too. My wish for you is that the cooperation between GE and Hungary continues to achieve successes of the kind that we have been lucky enough to celebrate here today.

Thank you for your kind attention.

(Prime Minister’s Office)