Hungary/Slovakia – Just a few days after his return to the post of Prime Minister following the general elections on 30 September, Robert Fico received the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó, in Bratislava on 7 November.

“A particularly beautiful period and enormous opportunities”

Following his talks with the head of the Slovak government, Mr Szijjártó praised a „patriotic government committed to upholding national interests and formulating a sovereign policy” while expressing particular optimism about the near future of Hungarian-Slovak relations: „As cooperation between governments that formulate sovereign policies and carry out activities aimed at asserting national interests is easier than in other cases, I think that from the point of view of the future of relations between Hungary and Slovakia, we are facing a particularly beautiful period and enormous opportunities”.

Similar positions based on common sense

It is true that the governments of Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico share many opinions, notably on the Russo-Ukrainian war (both reject the military support for Kiev advocated and practised by most of the Western countries) as well as on illegal immigration (Budapest and Bratislava in particular have the same negative opinion of the European Union’s migration pact), similar positions that booth governments consider to be „based on common sense”.

The previous Magyar-Slovak cooperation has brought many positiv achievements

Referring to the various achievements of previous Magyar-Slovak cooperation, Péter Szijjártó declared his readiness „to build cooperation in the coming period on a similar basis, where the aim is for both countries and both nations to benefit from this good cooperation, to coordinate our cross-border developments and to exploit the full potential of economic cooperation. […] We are ready to write the best chapter in cooperation between Hungary and Slovakia in the years to come. Fortunately, there is now a demand and a will for this on both banks of the Danube”.

For his part, his Slovakian counterpart, Juraj Blanár, also highlighted the past achievements of cooperation between the two countries: „We do not forget the value of good neighbourliness with Hungary, which is why we strive for correct relations and the development of cooperation. In recent years, we have built a number of successful projects that have brought practical benefits to the citizens of both countries. Today, therefore, we also discussed with the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjártó, further planned joint activities in the areas of foreign trade, transport infrastructure and energy”.