'Hungary is ready for the renegotiation of the double taxation treaty, but Washington isn't' – Szijjártó

In response to questions at the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham Hungary) Business Forum on Monday, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said, among other things, that the government had reached an agreement with the OECD on a version of the global minimum tax that would be acceptable for Hungary, ATV reports. The foreign minister said he had " sent a strong signaled about this" to Washington, and the Hungarian finance minister had also called for a "renegotiation" of the double taxation treaty,

"but the US administration is not ready for that yet."

- Szijjártó said. In his speech, he also touched on the cancellation of the treaty on the avoidance of double taxation, welcoming the fact that US Republican Party leaders "have promised to recommit to it in the event of a change of government".

The US withdrew from the 1979 double tax treaty with Hungary last year. Answering a question about this, Szijjártó said that America had acted in response to the Hungarian government's refusal to give its consent to the introduction of a global minimum tax.

Szijjártó said that the Hungarian government did not want to take action until it had been able to negotiate with the OECD, but "they have now reached an agreement". A deal which, according to the minister, "would not jeopardise Hungarian jobs" and "would not make the country less competitive". As to why the US is not responding to Hungary with openness in response, the minister said that to him it seems that the reason is " just because".

As the Hungarian state news agency, MTI reports, Szijjártó also said that economic cooperation is currently the best-functioning pillar of the relationship between the two countries, and the Hungarian government is counting on American companies present in Hungary to keep the relationship alive.

The Foreign Minister said that the hope everyone had at the beginning of last year that calmer times would come following the coronavirus pandemic proved to be a "naive illusion", as the war in Ukraine broke out, causing the global economy to turn upside down unprecedentedly, for a second time within a short period of time. He also called it a "big mistake" that "Europe has entered into competition with the United States, the world's leading military power, in providing defense assistance to Ukraine".

Speaking about US economic relations, Szijjártó said that US companies constitute the second largest investor community in Hungary, with 1,700 companies employing some 107,000 people, and that the bilateral trade turnover set a record in 2022 with a 16 percent increase. He added that the Hungarian government has supported 103 US investments with roughly two billion dollars over the last eight years, and there are currently ongoing negotiations with eight companies.