Hungarian prime minister says Europe is suffering huge loss in competitiveness

On September 13, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made remarks saying that Europe is facing a serious crisis of competitiveness loss. This view was put forward by Orban when commenting on the report on Europe's future competitiveness strategy recently released by former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi.

Orban pointed out that the changes in the world pattern and the rise of Asia are the realities that politicians must face at present. Under this general background, the European Union has two ways to respond. One is to actively join the competition, and the other is to blockade opponents. But currently, the European Union is moving in the direction of forming an opposing camp. He emphasized that the formation of such a camp would be a tragedy for Hungary because Hungary's interest lies in maintaining economic neutrality. He warned that if the world economy is divided into camps again like during the Cold War, Hungary will be pushed to the periphery and become an insignificant participant in the world economy, losing development opportunities.

In addition, Orban also mentioned that the automotive industry is a key sector of Hungary's economy and concerns the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of families. In the past few months, all the heads of large enterprises in this industry he met were opposed to the European Union imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. But the European Commission, disregarding these opinions, is still continuing to consider imposing tariffs. Orban said that Hungary will cooperate with many European political and economic participants to build a force that can promote changes in EU policies. This statement has attracted widespread attention and also made people think deeply about the future economic development direction of Europe. How Europe can regain its competitiveness in the changes of the global economic pattern has become an urgent problem to be solved.