This article was published online by the Magyar Nemzet on 8 January 2022.
Hungarian-Russian cooperation in various fields may be expanded in the coming year.
“This year has been the most successful ever for Hungarian-Russian cooperation” wrote Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in a Facebook post.
“And this is a great foundation to reach even better results next year,” he continued.
As the Foreign Minister wrote, Viktor Orbán will be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next February; preparations for the meeting are already underway. Szijjártó also highlighted the fields in which the two countries will work more closely in the coming year.
Some of these prioritized projects include the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, the production of the Sputnik vaccine in Hungary, cooperation on space technology, increasing the role of Záhony in east-west rail traffic and expanding the export market of Hungarian food products to Russia.
Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov awarded his Hungarian counterpart with an official Order of Friendship award, which is the highest honor a foreign citizen can receive in Russia. Following the ceremony, Szijjártó stated:
If we hadn’t made an effort, if we hadn’t assumed a foreign policy based on national interests in recent years, we would have been less successful today in tackling the pandemic and the European energy crisis. We were able to speed up the vaccination campaign with the Sputnik vaccine in the spring, and the gas purchase agreement signed at the end of September guarantees Hungary’s energy security.
