Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has called China a strategic trade partner for the EU and a major source of foreign direct investment, warning that any move to scale back ties with Beijing would be disastrous for the bloc.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Tianjin, China, he stated that both “decoupling” and “de-risking” would be “suicide” for the EU economy.
“How could you decouple without killing the European economy?” Szijjarto asked.
The minister’s warning comes as EU countries struggle to come up with a unified strategy on China, amid growing pressure from Washington to take a more cautious approach to Beijing.
The United States remains the top trade partner of the EU, but in 2022 China was the leading exporter to Europe and the third-largest buyer of EU goods.
Szijjarto stressed that Hungary does not view China as a threat, and sees no reason for “de-risking,” a term used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a speech in March, when calling on Europe to reduce its trade dependence on China.