DGAP Workshop
Continuing our focus on Hungary, the geostrategic perspective of Viktor Orban’s government was the subject of an expert workshop at the DGAP’s Robert Bosch Center (RBZ) organized on June 23 with the support of the German Foreign Office. In the new EU budget, which will be negotiated next year and start in 2020, the inflow of EU money from its “structural and cohesion” funds to Hungary and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe is set to significantly decrease. The workshop examined the implications of this for Orban’s government, and the question of whether Hungary may develop special relations with Russia and China as an alternative source of capital and public investment into infrastructure.
The RBZ workshop facilitated a substantive, fact-based discussion of these issues among Hungarian experts and their German counterparts. Participants came from various political camps as well as from academia. It also addressed the question of how Hungary sees its role in a multi-speed Europe – and confirmed the growing challenge posed by China an economic competitor in some segments of Central Europe’s manufacturing base, which is sometimes seen as Germany’s “backyard.”
The event was organized by the Robert Bosch Center and was held in English.
