Secretary Rubio and Hungarian FM Orbán at a MOU Signing Ceremony on Energy Infrastructure and Regional Energy Security and on Law Enforcement Cooperation and Information Exchange

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, thank you all for covering this here today and for being a part of this. It's an honor to be here with Foreign Minister Orbán, and the opportunity to sign these two important agreements. The first one, of course, is that we are aligned and taking steps together in our governments to confront this resurgence of far-left terrorism, which is something that's been ignored for far too long. It's something I spoke about earlier this year. And we have to stop the way these groups target police departments and law enforcement, and ultimately critical infrastructure, historical landmarks - the foundations of a free society; that's what they attack.

And so this politically - currently this politically motivated violence and destruction of property that we've seen in Europe and we've seen here in the United States, going back to 2020, where we saw people going after our monuments and going after things important to our history.

So this will improve - this Memorandum of Understanding, what it does is it's going to increase cooperation and information sharing. Because what we have found, as you've learned and we've learned, is that many of these movements are internationalized. They operate off the basis of an international network that seeks to destabilize Western societies, our systems, our culture, our civilization, ultimately. So we'll work to track these cross-border networks and bring them to justice, and we want to thank Hungary for being such an important partner in Europe in this emerging threat.

The second framework we're going to sign today has to do on the Trump Peace Pipelines. It's another milestone since Secretary Wright announced this at the Three Seas Initiative Summit. And this is an energy infrastructure initiative that helps to meet Central Europe's energy needs through U.S. energy. So this is an opportunity for us to continue to export energy that we are able to develop and create a little bit more energy independence, or at least energy diversification. So this is important.

And this memorandum of understanding, in my view, is a testament to the growing strength of the U.S.-Hungary economic cooperation. It demonstrates how our two countries can work together to deliver tangible results for our citizens.

So we're very happy you're here. Thank you for joining us and being a part of it. And I turn it over to you.

FOREIGN MINISTER ORBÁN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. This is such an honor and pleasure to be here at the U.S. State Department, and to work together on enhancing the Hungary and U.S. relationship even further. And I believe that we can deepen our ties not only in political matters, but security, nuclear, security in general, defense, and economic cooperation.

And as you said it, we are signing two MOUs today. The first one we will sign on - which reflects our cooperation against terrorism, against any act of terrorism. And we will be signing this MOU, which is on combating violent left-wing organizations. And this is important that under the existing law enforcement cooperation we will enhance the information sharing so that we prevent, detect, and prosecute any violence done by left-wing groups such as Antifa Ost both in the United States and Hungary.

And the second agreement which we will be signing is about energy security and energy infrastructure in Southeast and central Eastern Europe, and the second MOU is - will be within the framework of the U.S. initiative you already mentioned, the Trump Peace Pipelines framework, which is a very important initiative to enhance the energy infrastructure of central Eastern Europe both in oil and gas as well as create options for diversification and alternative sources of supply.

So we see this cooperation as an important milestone in the Hungary and America energy cooperation, also to help Hungary to become an important player in the regional energy supply, as well as together with you creating a robust, a resilient, and a very competitive energy ecosystem. The goal of our government is to have predictable, stable, and affordable energy supply for our consumers, for our industry, for our economy, and we see that this cooperation agreement will be a key milestone towards that.

However, I would like to emphasize one more thing: that the MOUs are key milestones, but they are part of the process. We are driven to take actions, to take action plans, and to have agreements. And one of the goals of my visit, that I go home today with concrete next steps (inaudible) along both MOUs and more and beyond, because our cooperation goes also beyond. It encompasses so many fields.

So I am very much looking forward to our very first official meeting after the signing ceremony, because we have so much to discuss.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Okay. So we're going to be signing two, right?

STAFF: Yes.

(The memorandums were signed.)

(Applause.)

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