Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Péter Szijjártó addresses the Belt and Road Summit 2023 in Hong Kong on Sept 13, 2023. (PHOTO / CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG – The proposals of European politicians on “decoupling” and “de-risking” with China will amount to a knockout of European economy, according to Hungary’s top diplomat.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Péter Szijjártó told the Belt and Road Summit 2023 in Hong Kong on Sept 13 that these politicians by those terms mean to cut economic ties with China.

“What would happen if you cut such ties? You are killing the European economy,” he said, noting the annual trade volume between the EU and China has reached over 800 billion euros ($859 billion).

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Therefore Hungary is urging for an even tighter, stronger, more successful and more efficient economic cooperation between China and Europe, the minister added.

Hungary is one of the very few EU member states that have not delivered weapons to Ukraine. And Hungary is aimed at becoming the meeting point of the West and the East, he said.

Szijjártó told a panel discussion that European policies toward Ukraine and sanctions against Russia are total failures. 

Europe is in bad shape, to say the least, confronting both security and economic challenges, noting his country’s neighbor Ukraine has been at conflict for the last one and an half years.

He said Europe is bearing the cost of the Ukraine-Russia conflict as European people are dying, its infrastructure is being ruined, and the economy is suffering huge losses.

“Unfortunately, the answer Europe has given to this war proved to be a big mistake, a huge failure,” he told the summit, adding that Europe should have isolated this conflict, but instead of that, Europe has globalized it.

Europeans should have prevented the conflict itself, but now everyday even higher risks of escalation keep emerging due to illogical acceptance and following of moves by the world’s top military power. On top of this, Europe has decided to implement a policy based on sanctions, said Szijjártó. 

“These sanctions proved to be a total failure,” Szijjártó said. This is because the goals of such sanctions, pressing Russia and ending the conflict, have not been fulfilled, while the competitiveness of the European economy is decreasing day by day.

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When it comes to the long-term impact of the conflict, the minister said there is another “very serious risk” as the world is going to be divided into blocs again.

The economic development of Europe had been based on a good combination of highly developed technologies and easily accessible and cheap natural resources from Russia. “But now the ties between the two … are now being cut, one by one,” he said.

Contact the writer at kelly@chinadaily.com.cn