It is a question for the future how East and West will be able to cooperate effectively, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the Hungarian-Turkish business forum held in Budapest on Tuesday.
“We, here in Europe, in the West, still haven’t fully succeeded in abandoning the cold-war mentality. We still keep thinking in terms of East or West, one or the other. The West is very slow in learning that this is the wrong question,” said Prime Minister Orbán in the presence of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
Mr. Orbán takes the view that if we fail to find an answer to the question of cooperation between East and West, effective cooperation between the European Union and countries outside the community, the “fantastic opportunity” that is within that cooperation will remain unexplored.
The Prime Minister also reiterated that Turkey has achieved major economic results in recent years. He believes that the immense respect of the Turkish people for the family has contributed to these outstanding achievements. Therefore, he continued, he questioned the Turkish Prime Minister in detail as to how his government has managed to place the family at the centre of attention in policy also. At the same time, the Prime Minister stated that the trend in the West today is that westerners should only learn from westerners, and if someone wants to learn something from people in the East as well, “he will immediately be dismissed in the press” as “unreliable in his commitment to democracy.”
The Hungarian premier remarked that this is how he is usually treated; however, it is no shame at all to learn from others.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, who opened the forum organised for members of the Turkish and Hungarian business communities, said in his speech that he had instructed Hungary’s foreign representations in Turkey to grant visas to Turkish citizens free of charge if they are requested for the purposes of attending conferences, business meetings, or sports, educational and cultural events.
He also informed the public that Magyar Nemzeti Kereskedőház Zrt. will reorganise its system of trading houses in Turkey, and will in the near future open trading house representations in eight cities around Turkey. The Minister said that Hungary’s exports to Turkey have never been as high as they were last year.