Hungarian Conservative

One of the key pillars of the state-funded John von Neumann programme is the development of science parks. The newly inaugurated pilot research laboratory at the University of Debrecen, where pharmaceutical development and small-scale production activities will be conducted in a biosafety level 2 (BSL2) work environment, was built with a grant from the programme.

Sándor Czomba stated that since 2010, the number of employed people has increased from 3.7 million to 4.7 million, thus achieving one of the government’s commitments to create one million new jobs in ten years.

‘In contrast to other indicators, the Hungarian judiciary performs below the European Union average in terms of the perception of its independence. Based on this, we might state that the rule of law conditionality procedure launched against our country is justified. However, the validity of this argument is undermined by the fact that there are no criteria in this area either in which Hungary would not be ahead of several other Member States. For example, the Spanish, Slovak, Bulgarian, Polish, and Croatian public have a worse opinion of the independence of their country’s judiciary than the Hungarian.’

Viktor Orbán and Timotheus Höttges agreed that digitalisation is a crucial factor for maintaining Hungary’s and Europe’s competitiveness, and the Hungarian government and Deutsche Telekom continue to consider each other strategic partners in this regard.

Hungary’s goal is to advance to the top ten best-performing countries in the European Union in terms of digital economic and social development by 2030.

Péter Szijjártó stated that one of the main pillars of the government’s foreign economic strategy is the economic relationship with China. ‘Companies like Huawei, which not only invest and create jobs in Hungary but also share technological knowledge and actively support domestic higher education, play the most important role in this,’ he declared.

In February 2023, the Defence Innovation Research Institute (VIKI) was established, with the aim of identifying and supporting the development of dual-use technologies, that is technologies that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. The institution is led by Brigadier General Imre Porkoláb, Ministerial Commissioner for Defence Innovation.

As far as social cohesion is concerned, Hungary made significant progress during the examined period: we improved by 16.9 index points in six years, which meant an advancement of five places (from 20th to 15th place). According to the Equilibrium Institute, we are primarily competing with the Finns and the Irish, with a score of 73.6.