Mr Orbán stressed that whether the summit would become a turning point would only be decided at the end of the meeting. However, the allies will make an attempt to make that happen by adopting a new strategic plan extending to 2030. Hungary agrees with the content of the document, he pointed out.
He said the key point of the strategy is the strengthening of national resilience capabilities; in this regard, Hungary is active, be that about the fight against the pandemic or action against migration.
“We have something to say, and we have something to contribute,” the Prime Minister highlighted.
Regarding the undertaking to be realised by 2024 that NATO Member States have pledged to spend two per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence expenditures, in answer to a question, he highlighted that “we will have done well once we have accomplished our undertakings”.
In his words, “it would be better” if already today Hungary was able to spend two per cent of its gross domestic product on its own security. According to his information, Hungary will reach this by 2022-2023, but he recalled that there are NATO Member States which are doing worse in this regard.
As for the pledge that Member States will spend 20 per cent of their defence expenditures on development, Mr Orbán highlighted that Hungary has already reached that target. Hungary has already honoured one of its undertakings, and will fully honour the other one by 2023-2024. With this, it will be at the top of the rankings, he pointed out.
“We live in a part of the world where you can’t exist without an army, there is no security without an army,” he said.
Hungarian families and the Hungarian nation will always need military capacity, a deployable military force. The building of that force is making good progress, he said.
“We neglected this for twenty or thirty years, but now I feel that also in this respect we’re placing Hungary back on the map,” he said.
In answer to a question about the challenges posed by China, the Prime Minister said Hungary is opposed to cold wars of every kind, and added that he had lived 26 years of his life amidst cold war circumstances. “Believe me, that’s a bad thing, we mustn’t do anything like that,” Mr Orbán added.
The one-day summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will also be attended by US President Joe Biden among the leaders of Member States.
The main topics of the meeting will be Russia, China, cyber-attacks and climate change.
The goal of the NATO summit is, among others, to identify those targets and tasks intended to be achieved and implemented by 2030 which could contribute to preparing the alliance for the challenges of the future. The summit also offers an opportunity to strengthen transatlantic relations and collective security.
