Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó on Tuesday highlighted the quadrilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary in the context of the project for the Black Sea submarine cable, an international initiative to create a new transmission route to deliver green energy from the South Caucasus to Europe, claiming it could be a “game-changer”.
The ”flagship” project could “contribute massively” to energy security of central and eastern Europe, Szijjártó noted in an interview with Imedi TV, calling the project “very important from the perspective of green transition and energy diversification”.
The Official also pointed out the role of the Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air in economic ties between his country and Georgia, describing it as the “market leader in the civil aviation” in Georgia and adding it “lays down a great economic foundation for our economic cooperation”.
Szijjártó noted Georgia’s economic growth rate of 10 percent last year and 7.5 percent forecast for this year, as well as a “low level” of budget deficit, emphasising the country’s “remarkable development”.
If you look at the current state of the EU, you see that [it] is struggling economically, politically, it is no more such a dynamic organisation for integration as it used to be”, he claimed.
So we need some freshness, we need new impetus, we need some new energies, and countries like Georgia with such a growth rate, such ambition can [contribute], and I would say it is equal how much Georgia needs European Union and how much EU needs Georgia, for you source, for this freshness and new energies, so therefore we are urging the EU to enlarge and when it comes to enlargement for Western Balkans, and those countries involving in association agreements [with EU], should be accelerated when it comes to the perspective of integration”, he added.
The visiting official also recalled an agreement signed between the respective governments on the promotion and mutual protection of investments during his Georgian counterpart Ilia Darchiashvili’s visit to Budapest in July this year, saying it laid a “solid legal framework for Hungarian companies to carry out investments in Georgia” .
He also added main sectors of cooperation between the two countries were tourism, infrastructure and water management industry.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán arrived in Georgia on an official visit between Monday and Tuesday, along with a delegation that included Szijjártó, Márton Nagy, the Minister for National Economy, Mihály Varga, the Minister of Finance, János Máté, the State Secretary, and other officials.
