Keynote Speech by Péter Szijjártó | Budapest Global Dialogue 2026
Péter Szijjártó
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hungary
February 9, 2026 | Budapest Global Dialogue – Back from the Brink
Good morning to you all! Thank you so much for the kind invitation. I’m really I’m really grateful that such a conference takes place in Budapest in a Hungarian Indian cooperation. We are very happy that the team which organizes the rising dialogue has teamed up with our foreign affairs institute united forces in order to um organize such a very timely conference although I’m not quite sure that we are back from the brink but there is a brink for sure that’s what we all know and I hope that at the end of the conference we will be closer to be able to answer the questions which have been um ahead of all of us. And it’s great that the the title of the conference is dialogue. This is what we stress for. This is what diplomacy should be about. Budapest is the right place for dialogue. Budapest is the location of freedom of expressing of our own opinion. No censorship, no pressure of the liberal mainstream. Here in Budapest, you are always welcome to carry out a dialogue based on mutual respect.
I do believe that during the current crisis and challenges, it is only dialogue based on mutual respect which can bring us closer to the solutions of the challenges ahead of us. I think it’s not a question that putting into consideration the period from the end of the second world war, we are now in the toughest situation when it comes to the global security. And in the meantime, a totally new world order is being shaped before our own eyes. A totally new world order which is based on changing everything to what we have been used to so far. Totally new rules and regulations, totally new methodologies. Whether it’s going to be finalized at any point of time, no one knows when this point of time will come. No one knows. But what we know for sure is nothing’s going to be similar as it used to be before. And I think there is a good reason why a totally new world order is being under establishment.
If you look back to the last 20 years, the world had to face four major crisis. Four major crisis out of which one would be enough for an entire century. Now we have lived basically a quarter of a century and we had four major crisis. And what is in common when it comes to these four major crisis is that Brussels has not been able to find and give the proper answers that led to the downgrading of the European Union while Hungary proved to be able to find the right answers which ended up in upgrading Hungary. And what is an impact of these four major crisis and the fact that European Union was not able to find the proper answers is that the European Union has isolated itself. And one of the major changes brought forward by the establishment of this new world order is that European Union is no more a factor neither in global politics nor in global economy. And if someone considers this as an exaggeration, may I raise the question that I observe it properly that the European Union has no seat around the table where the topic is how to settle the crisis of Europe. So what are these four major crisis?
First, we all remember the collapse of the global financial system and a global economic crisis as a consequence. We all remember the liberal answer performed by Brussels, high taxes, social aid, unemployment aid, an over ideologized policy on economy and energy. And what was the answer of Hungary? Restructuring the Hungarian economy. introduction of the lowest taxes of uh Europe, introducing a totally new labor regulation, uh establishing a very close cooperation between the education system and the economy itself and a very um pragmatic kind of economic uh energy policy based on the usage the growing usage of nuclear energy.
The second major crisis came forward 11 years ago when a wave of massive illegal migration has hit into Europe. What was the answer of Europe? „Wir schaffen das”. Everybody was allowed and welcomed. And nowadays if you walk along the streets of some big western European capitals and you are not aware where you are you might be uncertain about the continent. While here in Europe, while here in Hungary we have stopped illegal migration. We did not we did not agree with the Brussels approach namely migration must be managed. We have fought against the introduction of the obligatory redistribution quotas of illegal migration. We have not allowed a parallel society to be established. We have protected our identity. We have made it very clear that we stick to our sovereign right to decide whom we allow to enter the territory of this country and with whom we are ready to live together. This must be our sovereign right. That right must not be taken away from us. And you see the outcome. Hungary is a country with zero illegal migrants.
Then the third major crisis came forward six years ago. We would have never thought that the health care systems of the biggest and richest countries uh would go on their knees because of a global pandemic. And we all remember when the president of the European Commission has ordered vaccines for billions of euros on text messages and no one in the European Commission or in Brussels thinks that well this is not the right way but those vaccines didn’t arrive. The vaccination campaigns all around the world have already started but not in Europe. And then we decided not to wait for the European Commission but to turn to the east and based on our tradition which is the case. We bought vaccines from from the east and we were able to carry out the quickest vaccination campaign of Europe and we were able to reopen our economy among the first ones. Of course, we were faced with a huge propaganda campaign that buying vaccines from the east is dangerous, but there are some in the room who are Hungarians and have children during the communist era when we only got vaccines from the east. And my observation is that we are still alive.
And the fourth challenge, the fourth crisis we are faced with has been the war itself. I don’t think anybody would have thought that towards the end of the first quarter of Europe there would be a war in the heart of the continent. And here a major mistake was many major mistakes have been committed by the European Union. Basically all the decisions of the European Union regarding the war contributed to the increasing risk of the escalation of this war. And here in the neighborhood we found this very very dangerous. We are the only country in NATO and the European Union which has never delivered any weapons to Ukraine. We are the only ones who were brave enough to speak in favor of peace from the very beginning. And I do remember that those European leaders who are now speaking in favor of ceasefire have attacked us like hell after the peace mission of the prime minister to Kiev and Moscow when he argued in favor of ceasefire. At that time they considered ceasefire as a cuss word and now they argue for it. Two weeks ago in Brussels on the meeting of the last meeting of the foreign ministers, it was a consensus among the foreign ministers after a statement of one of our colleagues that European Union is not prepared for peace. That was said literally that was said and that was agreed by the others. European Union is not ready for peace. Is not prepared for peace. This is the first time it is being said openly that it is against the interest of Brussels to make peace in Ukraine. It is obvious that the European Union has been undermining the efforts of President Trump to make peace in Ukraine. Many of the people had a secondary feeling of shame when President Zalinski was escorted by the European leaders to Washington to avoid him making an agreement with President Trump on peace. If the Europeans had not undermined the efforts of President Trump, I do believe that peace could have already been made in our eastern um neighborhood. And I see that there is a total frustration in Europe because of the isolation. As an outcome of that, European leaders consider the war in Ukraine as if it was their war, our war, which is not. Russia has not attacked any EU member states.
There’s a war between Russia and Ukraine. It is not our war. Ukraine is not fighting for us. Ukraine is fighting for itself. Therefore, we don’t owe them anything and we are heavily against of sending the money of the Hungarian taxpayers into a war with which we have nothing to do and for which we bear no responsibility. But look at the isolation of the European Union. European Union has isolated itself from the major players of global politics. European Union has isolated itself from the United States. Remember, remember the competition among the European leaders since 2016. Who can make more nasty statements on President Trump? Remember that. Just to please liberal media, just to be on the headlines for a day. Bad news to the Europeans. It is not only us who remember those statements, but President Trump does as well. The European Union has isolated itself from China by an awkward position, suggesting as if we were systematic rivals with China. I mean who wants to go in a rivalry with the Chinese system? It’s their system. We are our own one.
Why should we be in rivalry when it comes to systems? Let’s look at where we can work together, where we can cooperate. The European Union has isolated itself from Russia by of course by the sanctioned regime which has caused more harm to the European economy than to the Russian. honestly and by basically throwing the model of European economic growth into the waste basket. The European model of economic growth was very simple. A clear combination of the developed western technologies and the um and the cheap Russian energy. Okay, it has been broken. But what’s next? No alternative strategy. I don’t call it as a strategy to buy energy more expensive and less reliable. This is everything but a strategy. And when it comes to the continents of the future, the European Union has isolated itself by putting these LGBT issues as preconditions ahead of any kind of rational cooperation in the field of trade or economy.
And to the contrary, I have to tell you that Hungary has been upgraded based on the 16-year long successful strategy of foreign policy. Our strategic goal was to make the four centers of global power be simultaneously interested in the success of Hungary where we succeeded. The Hungarian prime minister is the only leader in Europe who can talk to the American, to the Russian, to the Chinese and to the Turkish president. In the meantime, no other European politician is able to do that. The prime minister is in a personal friendship with the American president while he’s able to negotiate successfully on the basis of mutual respect with the with the Russian with the Chinese and the Turkish presidents. So Hungary strategy was successful has been successful while the strategy of Brussels has failed. The European Union is basically the major loser of the new world order. The strategy to divide the world into blocks has failed. And this new world order is a patriotic-based world order. The new world order is basically a product of the global patriotic revolution. And we are proud that Budapest was the destination was the location from where this global patriotic revolution has been started.
And of course with the fact that the leader of the number one superpower of the world is a patriotic leader, this revolution got a new boost. And this new world order is based unlikely to the former one is based on bilateral cooperations is based on intergovernmental cooperations. Is based on personal respect where friendship and loyalty are values and Hungary unlike the European Union is among the winners of this new world order. While the world was moving from a crisis to crisis, we have reached huge achievements here. When it comes to economy, we are a country of less than 10 million people, but there are 1 million people more having job compared to 10 years ago. Hungarian people have to pay the lowest tax rates of Europe. Hungarian people are paying the lowest energy prices of Europe and our family subsidizing system is a world champion. I don’t know about any example in the world where mothers are would be exempt from paying personal income tax lifelong.
And you know, while we were suffering from the impacts of the war during the last four years, these four years have proved to be the most successful years of Hungarian economic history when it comes to investments. The most investments have been arriving to Hungary during the last four years.
The most factories have been built, the most jobs have been created and Hungary became one of the leaders of the global technological revolution. And what is behind these successes? Well, I do believe that partly the fact that we look at dialogue as the essence of diplomacy, being introverted, arguing for the world to be divided into blocks is easy. You don’t need a very high level of intellectual standards. You can enjoy the praisal of the liberal mainstream for a couple of days, but being open to all directions, being able to build good relationships to all geographic dimensions.
Now that’s more complicated and there you have to be faced with tremendous attacks. Not week by week, but day by day, dirty, bloody attacks. But if you have a stable background back at home, you can resist. And the secret of the success of Hungary in the last 16 years has been a very clear public support behind the Hungarian government. And this is at stake for our elections within two months. whether Hungary will continue its uh sovereign national political strategy aiming at achieving national interests or those who are being delegated from Brussels would take over to fulfill the wishes of Brussels. That’s what at stake. That’s what the Hungarian people will decide upon.
We hope that they will make the right choice and Hungary will continue its sovereign Hungarian path which proved to be successful so far. So I wish good luck to all of you to find the answers to the major question which has been put here whether we are back from the brink. I very happy that you all came to Budapest. I hope you will enjoy. I wish you all the best. Thank you for the invitation and thank you for your kind attention.