Orbán: No economic issue more important than Hungarian-Croatian friendship

Addressing a joint press conference with his Croatian counterpart Andrej Plenkovic in Zagreb on Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he did not know of any economic issue that would be more important than the 800 years of friendship shared by Hungary and Croatia.

Orbán, who is on his first visit to Croatia in seven years, said after talks with Plenkovic that the lack of energy that currently characterises Hungarian-Croatian ties was “unnatural”. He said he had arrived in Croatia to help put bilateral relations back on the right track.

“The thorn must be removed from beneath the nail, and then everything will be alright,” Orbán said. “This is what we would like.”

Orbán said he and Plenkovic had made progress in their talks on the two countries’ ties both in their private meeting and the plenary meeting between their delegations. “We have common ground in terms of a historical perspective,” Orbán said. “We want a strong Europe, we want to strengthen cooperation among European nations and we’d be happy to see Croatia join the Schengen zone as soon as possible, because this too will strengthen Europe,” he added.

Further, both sides see bilateral economic cooperation as excellent, Orbán said. Bilateral trade turnover is constantly rising, as is the number of Hungarian investments in Croatia and more and more Hungarian tourists are visiting the country, he said.

The prime minister also said Croatian and Hungarian minority groups both enjoy living in each other’s countries.

Hungarians living in Croatia are content with their government and speak respectfully about Croatia and Croats living in Hungary are also enjoying the strongest support they have seen from Budapest in a long time, Orbán said.

Asked about the dispute surrounding Hungarian oil and gas company MOL and Croatian energy company INA, Orbán said that if Croats and Hungarians were incapable of working together on a business matter, then they should not, and Croatia should buy back INA.

MOL holds just under half of INA’s shares but has management rights in the company. The other big stakeholder is the state of Croatia. The sides have long been at odds over INA’s strategy.