Addressing a forum with European Union trade commissioner Cecilia Malström in the Budapest Business School, Mikola called CETA a good pact that is in the making after five years of hard bargaining.

Malström said the free trade agreements enable Europe to shape economic globalisation rather than passively suffering from it. The foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said after meeting Malström earlier that European companies were at a disadvantage on North American markets due to NAFTA (the US-Canada- Mexico trade pact).

It is in Hungary’s interest to compete there on equal terms, he added. Another agreement, the TPP, between 12 Pacific countries under the leadership of the United States, also excludes Europe, Szijjártó noted.

A decline in European competitiveness affects Hungary’s open economy acutely, but some national interests are key, such as the GMO issue, he said. Malström said she trusted Hungary would support CETA as this would bring “immediate economic benefits” for Hungary.

She said there is a growing consensus on the pact and it is hoped it can be signed in October. As for the TTIP, she said efforts were being made to speed up negotiations which would be continued under the next US presidency.

The ruling Fidesz party said that a decision would be made at next week’s meeting of the party’s parliamentary group on whether or not to back the CETA pact. Gergely Gulyás, the deputy group leader, said the party had not yet established a unified standpoint on the matter.

Fidesz also awaits the opinions of opposition parties, he told journalists. Gulyás said there were several points of vital importance on which a reassuring answer was needed before the party could lend its support to the agreement.

Among them are the issues of legal authority when it comes to settling disputes and the question of GMOs. The opposition LMP party accused the EU of involving multinational companies in free trade agreements and only listening to the voices of member states and its citizens after they make protests.

Erzsébet Schmuck, the party’s parliamentary group leader, noted after a meeting of parliament’s trade committee attended by Malström that LMP had been an ardent critic of the TTIP agreement and had lobbied the prime minister to withhold his support for it.

Schmuck said Europeans are less and less satisfied with the prospect of such trade pacts, since they feel it is “not on their behalf” that the EU is signing them.

Malström “must sense this uncertainty”, as she is visiting Hungary and other member states to discuss the subject, she added.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: KKM