5th Budapest LNG Summit: ideologies are not important when it comes to the energy business, says minister

Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said at the 5th Budapest LNG Summit on Tuesday that security of supply and price are the sole factors determining the government’s energy policy. “We don’t take political or ideological considerations into account,” he said.

The crises of recent years could well have spurred “a return to common sense, but we have seen just the opposite”, he said, adding that treating energy as a political issue jeopardised the security of supplies, which should be based on “physical realities rather than political ideology”.

“We are not ready to give up any partnership that has proven reliable in terms of energy supplies, and we will not terminate any contracts that we benefit from,” Szijjártó said.

The minister highlighted the importance of diversification, explaining that the government’s interpretation of the term centred on “securing new resources rather than excluding existing ones”.

Given Hungary’s geographical location, the country depends heavily on the region’s infrastructure, so developing the regional network “is crucial, even if European politicians often disregard the fact that gas cannot be transported in a bag or backpack,” he said. “The infrastructure determines the energy mix and impacts on relevant decisions. Boosting capacities is of vital importance… For us there is no such thing as a redundant gas pipeline,” he added.

He called construction of the TurkStream pipeline “a success story”, and said Hungary would contend with severe difficulties without it. He highlighted Hungary was the first country apart from Türkiye’s neighbours to import Turkish natural gas. Read our latest news: gas supplies from Türkiye to Hungary to start in April.

He also mentioned achievements of the Slovak-Hungarian interconnector, enhanced pipeline capacity between Hungary and Romania, a supply deal with Shell on LNG, and cooperation with Azerbaijan in the area of gas supplies.

Szijjártó regretted that “Western partners” had “abandoned” Romania’s LNG project, adding that Romania would hopefully start production in the future and Hungary would be among potential purchasers of its LNG.

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The minister accused the European Union of reducing aid for energy infrastructure developments in south-east Europe, insisting those projects were critical for diversification. He slammed the European Commission, saying its position was that “developing the network was unnecessary because natural gas had no future and it would not be in the energy mix in 15 years.”

“Even if that were true … what about supplies for the next 15 years? Hungary continues to reject aggressively and artificially removing natural gas from the energy mix… We consider this economic suicide and don’t want to compromise the competitiveness of the EU further,” Szijjártó said.

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