Photo: Róbert Hegedüs
Mariann Őry
08/01/2025 06:01
"The 21st century is characterised by a new yin-yang formula," warned György Matolcsy in his opening speech. The new duality is created by the confrontation between unlimited resources - information, energy, finance, knowledge and talent - on the one hand, and growing risks - climate change, new wars, social tensions, governance by artificial intelligence, the emergence of new borders - on the other, and we must take advantage of it.
According to the governor, three major super-trends will define our next twenty-five years: geopolitics, climate change and the technological revolution, which will interact. György Matolcsy pointed out that while technological revolutions used to come to an end after a certain period of time, today there is a "permanent technological revolution", defined by the quantum world, the singularity and general artificial intelligence. On climate change, which he cited as one of the challenges, he noted that we could see an exponentially intensifying process that could cause a "little hot age".
György Matolcsy called it an important question "what kind of European Union can be a successful partner for Asia". He noted that it is probably not the current one, which is in decline. Among the reasons for this, he cited over-centralisation in Brussels, the "half-finished" common market and the euro imposed on member states. To change things for the better, the central bank governor said, we must first break away from the idea of a "United States of Europe", which is a damaging direction and has already caused a lot of losses.
In the early 2030s it is possible to build a new Europe based on new agreements. The basis for this are strengthened member states, which will regain the powers they gave up to Brussels. Compared with the current over-centralisation, a looser, "commonwealth" type of cooperation would be viable.
He warned that, in addition to the restructuring of European cooperation, a new agreement with Russia will be needed, as well as a US-Middle East peace agreement, as the Middle East is very important and is our close neighbour. We are moving towards a new paradigm for Europe - the governor continued - we need to change the vision, Europe must be first in terms of sustainability and living standards, and this requires the development of decentralised, horizontal networks, which I mentioned earlier, which will bring about a much more efficient operation.
He stressed that Hungary can be a platform for the world, a founding member of this new, looser organisation in Europe and can play an important role in building Eurasian networks. Hungary is a gateway to the true diversity of Europe, and a new financial hub between Europe and Asia can be created in Hungary.
The author is deputy editor-in-chief of Eurasia