Exclusive Interview with Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó |10 November 2021

Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade,Péter Szijjártó (Photo: Thomas Meriton)

‘Our relationship is based on mutual respect’

At the very end of his rigorous one-day official visit in Seychelles yesterday, Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade,Péter Szijjártó, sat down at the L’Escale Resort Marina & Resort for an exclusive interview with Seychelles NATION. Settled in the lounge area we talked about cooperation between Seychelles and Hungary, trade opportunities, the fight against climate change and Hungary’s occasionally turbulent relationship with the European Union (EU), all in less than 15 minutes.

Minister Szijjártó departed Seychelles straight after the interview for yet another official visit, this time in Rwanda.

Seychelles NATION: Minister, Hungary and Seychelles have enjoyed diplomatic relations for a long while, since 1977. So why is it only now that the two countries are coming forward with strong actions?

Minister Szijjártó: Actually, that’s a shame that our relationship was pretty passive during the past years. When we, the current government, came into power back in 2010 we started widening the scope of Hungarian foreign policy because our predecessors had just cared about European and trans-Atlantic relations and nothing else really. In 2014 we announced our strategic world opening to the south and we started to put more emphasis on the African cooperation ‒ first in the northern part and then gradually we came further south. And the breakthrough was made by your Foreign Minister [Sylvestre Radegonde] this July when he visited me in Budapest. That was the first visit of a Seychellois Foreign Minister to Hungary after 30 years because 1991 had marked the first and last visit of a Seychellois foreign minister. The minister invited me to come and since we were able to identify some significant areas of cooperation that made sense to come.

We have based this relationship on mutual respect ‒ we do not interfere in the domestic issues of each other and we don’t care about the domestic issues of each other. We just care about how we can cooperate and how we can serve the benefits of both nations.

Seychelles NATION: How would you describe the relationship between the two countries and what makes it so unique?

Minister Szijjártó: Well, this is a very friendly and respectful relationship. They are two small countries; one is a small island country and the other is a small landlocked country working together based on mutually respecting and trusting each other. And both of us have been putting emphasis on the practical things rather than on ideological or principles things. We have agreed on a scholarship programme which has entered into force already, we have agreed on cooperation in the field of healthcare, cyber security and on security also. We really do appreciate the efforts the Seychelles has been making in order to ensure maritime security in this region. We know that, in the last six years, European Union has been struggling with the enormous pressure of illegal migration and part of these migratory flows are stemming from Africa, and that is why we value those countries that act against these kind of flows. Seychelles ensuring the maritime security here in the eastern part of Africa ensures that there are less people migrating from this region to Europe. That is why we urge the European Union to give some more financial assistance to Seychelles so as to carry out all those legal procedures, which are the consequences of piracy activities in the region.

Seychelles NATION: What are some of the actions that have come out from today’s official visit and what more do you hope to achieve?

Minister Szijjártó: We have made some important agreements. First, we agreed to mutually recognise each other’s vaccination certificates regardless of the type of vaccines used. With this agreement we allow everybody who has been vaccinated to travel freely between the two countries and we understand that Hungarians need to show a negative PCR test in order to come in but mutually recognising the vaccination certificates of each other was very important for us. Because we understand that you are a safe country and we are a safe country ‒ you were the first one in Africa to start vaccination and we were the first country in Europe to reach 60% vaccination rate. You are not making ideological questions on the vaccine and neither are we ‒ you are using Western and Eastern vaccines and we are doing the same so we have a very similar approach.

Second, we made an agreement on cyber security. A Hungarian company is going to establish a cyber security centre here in the Seychelles with the financial assistance of the Hungarian Eximbank. We have already opened a US $17 million credit line for this.

The third agreement is in the field of healthcare and we are ready to receive your nurses and doctors on training programmes in the biggest Hungarian medical university in Budapest. The agreement has already been finalised and the director of the university is coming in January or February [next year] to sign that and from that point onwards your medical staff will be entitled to take part in the training programmes and I think that will lead to the improvement to your capacity building efforts.

The last agreement is on the side of drug prevention. We understand that drug traffickers are putting a huge pressure on this region; we understand that it causes a lot of trouble when it comes to increasing use of drugs here. So we have unfortunately collected some experience in this regard in the recent decades but we have developed our capacities to fight back. That is why we will receive a delegation of your drug prevention experts, psychologists and doctors from December 6 to 12 in the Hungarian institution to show them how we have built a structure to fight against the use of drugs.

Seychelles NATION: Let’s talk about trade a bit. How can trade between Seychelles and Hungary increase and in what areas?

Minister Szijjártó: I think the most important thing is that we should have some flagship investments because the more investments there are mutually, the more trades will take place. This is a very clear experience from my dealings with trade policies. On the other hand, I believe that the food industry products could constitute the breakthrough. You are the number one tuna exporter to European Union, including Hungary, and we understand that food products here are bought from Europe. In our case, our milk and meat products could count on some demand here. Putting into consideration our GMO-free agriculture we can comply with the most sophisticated health-related requests.

Seychelles NATION: Aside from medicine, what other fields of studies can Hungary assist Seychelles with?

Minister Szijjártó: According to our agreement, we provide 10 scholarships for Seychellois students in Hungarian universities out of which four are in the field of medical science. Apart from that there are sports, science, economy, agriculture and social science.

Seychelles NATION: World leaders rallied at Glasgow last week for the COP26 summit. As a small country like Seychelles ‒ albeit a little bit bigger ‒ what is Hungary’s take on the outcomes of the meetings?

Minister Szijjártó: First of all we are a country that takes environmental protection very seriously. We were the first country in Europe to ratify the Paris agreement; we are among those 21 countries of the world which could increase their GDP parallel to decreasing emissions and we are going to be totally CO2 free by 2050, and we are now building a new nuclear power plant in order to curb down the CO² footprint.

But we are not happy with the green policies currently in the world because you see what kind of crisis has been caused in Europe. Unfortunately, anti-gas and anti-nuclear sentiments have been created. Although nuclear should be respected as a clean and sustainable way of generating energy because it prevents major CO² footprints, and we are absolutely against this anti-gas sentiment because gas is the best form of energy for the transition period. I think some more rationality should be put forward here.

We should all take the issue of climate change more seriously but the biggest polluters have not shown up in COP26 and we understand that this is an existential question for many countries, mostly for island countries because the rise of sea levels threatens their existence. So we continue to push for the European Green Fund to give support to countries like you. We have paid almost over €4 million into this fund which has already financed some environmental protection projects here in Seychelles.

Seychelles NATION: Lastly, how would you describe Hungary’s relationship with the European Union. We know that there have been some accusations from its side in regards to Hungarian laws targeting the LGBT, so how is it?

Minister Szijjártó: Look the European Union is faced with many challenges currently and there is a big debate within European Union on which way to go forward. There is a liberal mainstream which is ruling the debate and our policies are going definitely against the liberal mainstream. So there are two governments in the EU ‒ Poland and Hungary ‒ that represent a conservative, patriotic, Christian-democratic approach. And this approach is totally opposite to the liberal mainstream, that’s why on the value basis we are under continuous political attack and blackmailing also. We are considered as anti LGBT although we have just passed the law which protects children from direct pornographic contact, promotion of homosexuality, promotion of gender change and gives the exclusive rights to parents to conduct the sexual education on their own instead of having an NGO come in from somewhere else in the world to do. We have banned LGBT activists from going into schools and kindergartens because up to the age of 18 we have to protect children from such impacts.

We do believe that the European Union can only be strong when the member states themselves are strong and this is an approach which is totally countering the mainstream, because the mainstream asks that all competencies be given to and something like the United State of Europe should be created. Our approach is different; we think that the member states should be strong, no more competencies should be given to Brussels and some competencies should be given back to the member states such as in regards to migration and then these strong member states can formulate a strong European Union. These are two different approaches, the debates are around it and as a democratic country we will never shy away from debates because the future of the EU has a huge impact on the future of Hungary. Hungary has been part of the EU for 17 years, we joined in 2004.

Seychelles NATION: Thank you Minister.

Interview conducted by Elsie Pointe