Ex-Hungary minister Szijjártó joins BYD after securing factory
Péter Szijjártó, the architect of Hungary’s pro-Beijing investment strategy, has joined Chinese automaker BYD just months after losing office, highlighting the deep commercial ties complicating EU efforts to curb Chinese auto imports.
Péter Szijjártó has resigned from the Hungarian parliament to take an executive role at BYD, the world's largest electric carmaker. The former foreign minister announced on Wednesday that “starting today, I will continue to work as the executive responsible for the group’s external relations and the development of new business lines.” Szijjártó, who held a seat in parliament since 2002, said he received “a highly prestigious offer” from a firm he called “one of the greatest success stories in the automotive industry over the past 20 years.”
His move to BYD comes barely two months after he left government following the landslide election victory of opposition leader Péter Magyar over Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party in April. Since his defeat, Szijjártó had been largely absent from parliamentary votes and rarely appeared in public. While in office, he personally spearheaded the negotiations that brought BYD to Hungary, noting the project came after 224 rounds of talks.
The planned Hungarian factory is central to BYD's strategy to bypass European Union import tariffs designed to protect the continent's domestic auto industry from Chinese overcapacity. By manufacturing inside the bloc, the automaker avoids the levies Brussels has placed on cars shipped directly from China. Szijjártó secured state financial incentives for the plant, which he labelled “one of the largest investments in Hungarian economic history.”
His transition from the minister who facilitated this investment pipeline to a corporate executive at its beneficiary illustrates the stark divide between Budapest's economic alignment with Beijing and Brussels' protectionist trade stance. Under Orbán, Szijjártó spent nearly 12 years opposing EU tariffs on Chinese goods and actively courting Beijing. His tenure saw the opening of multiple Chinese EV battery plants in Hungary and the joint development of a Belt and Road rail corridor connecting Hungary and Serbia.
Szijjártó's new role lands amid escalating trade tensions between the EU and China. The bloc is grappling with a record trade deficit with Beijing that has reached €1 billion a day. EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has set an October deadline to achieve "tangible" results through dialogue with China. However, that timeline faces deep scepticism, with German MEP Bernd Lange warning it is "not realistic at all" if the goal is a binding agreement.
