Dear Visitor,

Welcome to the website of the Embassy of Hungary in Brussels!

Our Embassy is accredited to the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. Its primary mission is to enhance and foster political alliances, business partnerships and friendships with the two host countries.

As for the political alliances, Belgium and Luxembourg together with Hungary are members of the European Union and NATO. Thus, Hungary and the host countries belong to the same political community and military alliance. Our objective is to turn this political alliance between our countries into tangible results in concrete matters pertaining to global issues and the future of the European Union, as well as in the specific issues of our bilateral relations.

Our goal is to strengthen the business partnerships: on the one hand, to encourage those respected Belgian and Luxembourg companies who are already present in the Hungarian market to maintain their presence (for example pharmaceutical industry, financial services, lighting technologies, furniture industry), to carry out further investments and also to attract new investors. On the other hand, it is also important to encourage and support the establishment of Hungarian companies, especially small and medium sized enterprises to the Belgian and Luxembourg market. Our aim is to increase mutual trade, strengthen economic growth and, through these measures, boost employment.

These goals cannot be successfully achieved without friendly relations between our countries and our citizens. During the turbulent centuries of Hungarian history many of our fellow citizens found refuge and new home here and have become respected members of the local society. We remember the receipt of hundreds of Hungarian children for holiday in Belgium after World War I, or the emigration after the Hungarian revolution in 1956. Nowadays, an increasing number of Hungarians benefit from the free movement of persons within the European Union and choose to settle down here. Furthermore, every year, more and more Hungarian tourists arrive to this corner of the world, and more and more Belgian and Luxembourg tourists get acquainted with Hungary's natural, cultural and culinary treasures. The Cultural Service of the Embassy, the Balassi Institute also plays an important role in this regard (www.brusszel.balassiintezet.hu).

Hungary is one of the few countries in the world that have established contractual relationships with all federal entities of Belgium. We have concluded cooperation agreements with Flanders in 1995, with the Walloon Region and the French Community in 1997, and with the German-speaking Community in 2002. Accordingly, even though the Embassy's political mission is primarily carried out in Brussels, fostering the economic, political, cultural and scientific cooperation in the Flemish and Walloon regions as well as in Luxembourg also constitute our daily task.

Although Hungarian diplomacy is focused on promoting Hungary’s political and economic interests and on helping the successful cooperation with the host countries, it still remains an important task to take care of the significant Hungarian expatriate community – with the EU institutions workers – nearly 20.000 people living in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as of consular functions related to the protection of the interests of our visiting compatriots. Despite an outstanding number of cases, even in comparison with other Western European capitals, our consular service carries out its duties efficiently and to the general satisfaction of our customers, executing a wide range of tasks (e.g. citizenship and birth register-related tasks; issuing new travel documents; diplomatic authentication; certification of documents).

My colleagues and I will strive to pursue Hungary’s national interests by operating a modern embassy in accordance with the most beautiful traditions of diplomacy that will - at the same time - meet the contemporary challenges. The Embassy will work towards strengthening our bilateral ties proactively by applying innovative methods, a customer-friendly approach. We work in close co-operation with all other Hungarian representations in Brussels: the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the European Union, and the Permanent Delegation of Hungary to NATO.

With this aim in mind, we are committed to providing you with as much useful and regularly updated information as possible on our website, as well as on the Embassy's Facebook page.Facebook oldalán.

It is my honor to be at the service of all Hungarian citizens, as well as our friends from Belgium and Luxembourg, and we appreciate all supportive and helping remarks and opinions.

Dr. Tamás Iván KOVÁCS, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary