Presidency work at the British Embassy in Budapest is not confined to formal Presidency calendar events. We are also assisting with the intensive bilateral engagement of UK Ministers and senior officials with their Hungarian counterparts. Thanks to the heightened UK interest in all things Hungarian these days, these exchanges often go beyond immediate EU policy or Presidency priorities. The most recent example of such engagement was a London meeting between the Minister of State from the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Greg Barker, and Hungarian Deputy State Secretary for Climate and Low Carbon Policy, Peter Olajos.
Given the special relationship that has been built between our Embassy and Mr Olajos and his team, I was particularly glad that we could arrange this visit. I for one have been closely involved with him from day one of his taking office. And we have since worked together on a number of occasions to try to raise the profile of climate action in Hungary. We are joint patrons to the 10:10 Hungary campaign. And together we opened the massive club party event that launched the campaign, in an asphalt-melting 40 degree temperature, in downtown Budapest in July 2010. We also co-hosted a unique football match at a famous Hungarian football club as part of our 10:10:10 Global Action Day programme. Hungarian Olympic champions, climate researchers and academics played football as a call for urgent climate action, using the power of sport to appeal to audiences not normally captured by climate messaging.
I was glad to learn that Minister Barker invited his Hungarian colleague to discuss EU climate policy and the views of the Hungarian Presidency when they met at the United Nation’s Climate Summit in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010. The Embassy used this occasion to showcase UK policy in support of low carbon economic transition, in a programme involving relevant UK Ministries and The Carbon Trust. Their visit here helped to identify potential co-operation in low carbon technology research and a possible joint fund for follow-up activity. This could build on the excellent collaboration of a number of UK and Hungarian universities and research centres under the European Institute of Technology’s Climate Innovation Community programme. Hungary offers lower CO2 abatement costs than in the UK in a number of areas, with agri-energy being the most promising one. And Hungary has suitable land capacity to host test projects in this area. This kind of bilateral co-operation between Member States is something the EU has been strongly advocating.
Central and Eastern European Member States are considered to be very conservative, some even bordering on scepticism, when it comes to EU climate ambition and the benefits of a low carbon economic transition. By practical co-operation on green investment and research, this position could be shifted. It also offers the UK a variety of business opportunities as well as a cheaper way to cut emissions. Europe’s key challenge is whether we can benefit from the green industrial revolution or risk ending up in the slow lane. The green race has started. But simply telling our partners this is no longer enough. If they are not yet convinced of the benefits, we can help by finding an area in which they can have a comparative advantage and then working with them to realise that potential. This is a win-win scenario. I hope that very soon we will be running together in the green race.