Orbán said that challenge had to be addressed in the context of the war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East and in Africa that were at risk of escalating.

He also pointed to security threats not seen since the 2015 migration crisis that were putting pressure on the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone. Hungary’s EU presidency will propose a new European competitiveness deal, extending for five years, at an informal summit in Budapest on November 8, Orbán said.

He added that a reduction in administrative burdens and overregulation, affordable energy prices, green industrial policy and a strengthening of the internal market were part of the new competitiveness deal.

He also said that barriers to the movement of goods and services needed to be removed, while EU capital markets had to be bolstered to prevent savings from flowing to investments in the United States, and a policy of connectivity advanced. He said the EU needed change and Hungary’s EU presidency wanted to be a catalyst for that change.

Orbán noted that he was in Strasbourg to present the program for Hungary’s EU presidency to MEPs on Wednesday.

He said that it was the second time he had personally headed Hungary’s EU presidency and recalled that the first time, in 2011, involved dealing with the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Arab Spring and Fukushima. Hungary’s next EU presidency is “written in my calendar, as optimism is important”, he added.

He said Hungary’s EU presidency, given the country’s size, could point out problems and make recommendations, but European institutions and big member states would have to take the decisions. Improving competitiveness is the focus of Hungary’s EU presidency, he added. The United States and China have outpaced Europe’s economic growth for two decades, while Europe’s share of global trade has declined, he said.

He added that companies in the EU had to pay double or triple what their counterparts in the United States paid for electricity and four or five times as much for gas. European companies spend half as much on R&D as ones in the United States, he said. Addressing demographic trends, Orban said the scale of Europe’s labour force didn’t support the continent’s output growth.

He added that improving productivity was doubly important as earlier and had to exceed the pace of development in the United States.

Orbán called an EU decision to levy punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs “an absurdity” as local automotive industry companies had protested the measure. He added that just ten of the EU’s 27 member states, accounting for 45 percent of the EU’s residents, had backed the move.