“Hungary is performing outstandingly with regard to defence spending, which has increased by 20 percent since the NATO summit in Newport in 2014, and this is fourth largest increase in the defence budget among the EU’s Member States”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI in Warsaw, where the Minister is attending a two-day NATO summit.
Mr. Szijjártó said the Warsaw summit was “extremely important” because the decision made here will result in the reinforcement of the Alliance’s defence capabilities, including its eastern wing. The Foreign Minister said that one of the 8 Eastern European elements of the rapid reaction forces, NATO Force Integration Units (NFIU), to be established in accordance with the decisions arrived at during the Newport summit, could be set up in Hungary next year. Mr. Szijjártó stressed that the establishing of the NFIU does not mean the stationing of troops, but involves only a command point, which in Hungary’s case means the deployment of 40 NATO officers, 20 of whom will be Hungarian.
Mr. Szijjártó confirmed that a company of Hungarian military personnel will be on a tour of duty in 2018 under Italian command within the framework of the 5 thousand strong Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), also known as the Spearhead Force.
The Foreign Minister also mentioned that in accordance with the upcoming decisions during the Warsaw summit an international battalion including some 4 thousand personnel will be deployed in a rotating system in Poland and the Baltic States. A military presence of this nature is in harmony with the basic treaty between NATO and Russia, he pointed out.
Hungary is not participating in this rotating deployment, but next year Hungarian military personnel will be taking part in military exercises in the Baltic States on a rotating basis with soldiers from the other countries of the Visegrád Group.
The two-day Warsaw summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is being held with the participation of heads of state and government from 28 countries and under the chairmanship of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Hungarian delegation is being led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.