Hungary Pledges Ties With Russia Despite Invasion
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary pledged to continue cooperation with Moscow while hosting the Russian health minister despite Western condemnation over Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó spoke at a joint press conference Wednesday for selected reporters in Budapest with visiting Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.
It marked a rare visit by a Russian cabinet member to a European Union and NATO military alliance member state, but Szijjártó said Hungary wanted “to keep communications channels” with Russia.
Worthy News and other outlets, such as Reuters, were not invited to the press conference as the government of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has tried to tighten its grip on the media.
However, in comments monitored by Worthy News, Szijjártó declined to blame Russia for the invasion of Ukraine but condemned the war in general terms and called for peace talks.
He also criticized weapons shipments to Ukraine by NATO allies who sent tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to help Kyiv recapture territory seized by Moscow.
Szijjártó stressed that Hungary, seen as Russia’s closest ally within the EU, wouldn’t support the disbursement of the next tranche of the European Peace Facility, an EU aid program for Ukraine. He demanded that Kyiv first removes Hungary’s OTP Bank from its list of “international sponsors of war” before it would receive more European aid.
MORE COOPERATION
The foreign minister also said Hungary seeks to cooperate with “Russia in areas not falling under EU sanctions,” especially in energy, as “that is in the national interest.”
Hungary gets most of its oil and natural gas from Russia, with Hungarian households paying a fraction of utility prices charged in other EU nations that mostly halted Russian imports.
Russia remains a reliable partner in delivering fossil fuels, without which “it would be physically impossible” to fulfill demand in Hungary, Szijjártó added.
He explained that under a long-term bilateral contract, Russia had delivered 2.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas this year. “It is partially thanks to those deliveries that Hungary already has 42 percent of its annual consumption in reserves, compared with the 23 percent EU average.” Russian crude deliveries through the Druzhba, or “Friendship Pipeline”, one of the world’s longest oil pipelines, are also “uninterrupted and have reached 2.2 billion cubic meters,“ he added.
“I would like to state loud and clear that Hungary has a vested interest in maintaining its decades-long energy cooperation with Russia.”
Yet, he claimed that Hungary is also looking to diversify its resources, including with nuclear energy. Szijjártó said he expects that Russia’s atomic energy agency Rosatom will build two new reactors at Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant by 2030 and 2031 as agreed under a 2014 contract that has so far met with significant delays.
Murashko told the press briefing that “Paks is a project that we are implementing together, and both parties are interested in realizing this project according to the agreement.”
SUPPORTING COMPANIES
Additionally, Szijjártó stressed that besides cooperation on energy Hungary “continues to support companies operating in Russia outside of the sectors hit by EU sanctions as do our Western competitors.”
Those sectors include banking, pharmaceuticals and health care, agriculture, the food industry, and construction, he added.
Murashko reiterated that Moscow would support the operation of Hungarian companies present in Russia. OTP and Hungarian drug maker Richter both have operations in Russia.
“We will support the work of Hungarian companies in the Russian Federation,” Murashko explained.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Murashko arrived in Budapest as the EU closed its air space for Russian planes, but it is easy to reach Hungary over land from neighboring Serbia.
Russians exploited a loophole known as the “Serbian backdoor” to reach Europe and circumnavigate the EU-wide ban on flights to and from Russia.
Air Serbia, which is primarily state-owned, said earlier it had doubled the number of direct flights from Moscow to Belgrade to 15 a week to meet demand.Serbia is not a member of the EU and NATO.
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