Orbán's goal is to make Hungary a regional middle power in Central Europe according to his political director

"No to dismantling, yes to connecting" is the title of a summary written by Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister's political director based on a strategy shared by Viktor Orbán in a closed session and published by Mandiner. Speaking at a closed-door event before Christmas, the prime minister outlined the challenges he believes Hungary will be facing in the next decade and the opportunities that will be available to the country.

According to Balázs Orbán's summary, the biggest challenge for the next ten years is:

For Hungary to break out from the ranks of the middle-income countries, catch up with the developed countries, and to achieve the status of a regional middle power in Central Europe.

At present, however, the possibility of breaking out is threatened by a number of factors, including the "neoliberal world order" having been damaged at several points in recent years – Brexit, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Russian-Ukrainian war – which Orbán believes is leading to disconnection, i.e. "the US-led West is increasingly severing, weakening or controlling its relationships", the political director's summary says. The disconnection will eventually lead to the creation of the international blocs familiar from the Cold War era, according to Orbán's reasoning.

Hungary must stay out of this division into blocks because that would be tantamount to becoming irrelevant

- the Hungarian prime minister believes. "What happens in such a set-up at best is that each country has to choose a centre, and its connection to that centre is an exclusive one.

In other words, our country would inevitably be forced into a subordinate role, which would prevent it from leaving the ranks of middle-income countries. Therefore, the first step of the Hungarian catching-up strategy is to develop a country-specific globalisation logic in which the negative effects are overridden. The model of interconnected economies offers a solution to this problem."

- Balázs Orbán explains.

Orbán, the political director – and apparently his boss as well – believes that breaking out from among the middle-income countries is a challenge, and although it is daunting, but not impossible. This is illustrated by the fact that "comparing the last twelve years, we are now the closest to the EU average in terms of GDP per capita. In 2010, this value was 66 percent of the EU average, and in 2021 we reached 76 percent of the average level of development."

According to the Prime Minister's strategy, the key to breaking through and to the creation of the new economic strategy model is:

• for the Hungarian banking sector to become a regional and global player,
• a further boosting of "the already record-breaking level of foreign direct investment is necessary
• in the field of energy, more links with major distribution points in the world and the immediate region should be developed."
• Hungary needs to have a stronger presence on the international scene, and should strengthen its food, pharmaceutical and automotive industries,
• and "the restructuring of higher education already underway should be used to facilitate the transfer of know-how to industrial players and distant research centres."

- thus concludes the list of strategic tasks set out by the Prime Minister's political director in his summary.