The governments of Hungary and Portugal are entering a bilateral alliance at the European Union (EU) that will benefit African interests. The said partnership will help to enforce effective EU strategies for the continent and also benefit African countries in the space sector.

This disclosure was made official by the Hungary Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Thursday. 

The minister mentioned that: “Hungary and Portugal are two countries with totally different geographical locations and a totally different history, as a result of which they naturally also view many international issues differently”. “This, however, does not rule out the fact that they may cooperate with relation to international issues that are important, or even strategically important, to Hungary”. 

“Portugal would like the European Union to draw up a truly existing and effective Africa Strategy, and this is something Hungary also has an interest in, because one instrument against the migration pressure pushing on Europe is border protection, and the other is the prevention of outflow from Africa”.

Hungary has already committed itself by offering scholarships to African students, while also discussing the possibility of collaborations in the space sector. The minister mentioned that “cooperation is now being expanded with another high-tech sector of industry, the space industry. Portugal is working on establishing a major satellite development and launching capacity, and Hungary is also working on its own satellite program: two of its small satellites are already in orbit, the deployment of the third is about to take place, and from 2024 it will have the right to put a large satellite into orbit around the Earth”. “This means that cooperation with Portugal is also extremely important with relation to the future of the Hungarian space industry, and we have now duly concluded a cooperation agreement”.

In the past, Portugal has extended a Space partnership deal to African countries like Algeria and Morocco towards expanding its Agency, while also recently considering a partnership with South Africa.