Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has criticised Croatia, saying it was not a reliable oil-transit country.
In a Facebook post on Friday, Szijjártó noted that Hungary and Slovakia turned to the European Commission a week and a half ago over Ukraine’s decision to halt the transit of volumes of crude needed for the security of their oil supply.
“Yesterday, the executive vice-president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis of Latvia, sent a letter to my Slovak counterpart and me,” Szijjártó said. “In this letter he said Ukraine was not endangering the supplies of either Hungary or Slovakia, and besides, there is another pipeline going through Croatia that we can use,” he said, calling the letter “outrageous”.
Szijjártó said the executive vice-president’s letter “proves once again that the Ukrainians can do whatever they want to EU member states, especially if they are pro-peace and don’t supply weapons”.
Croatia did not carry out the necessary developments
“It’s obviously a coincidence that the Croatian prime minister wrote a letter to the president of the European Commission the day before yesterday in which he advertises the oil pipeline traversing Croatia,” Szijjártó said.
Photo: FB/Szijjártó
“Besides the two letters confirming that this is a coordinated operation from Brussels, there’s another big problem with the Croatian option,” he said.
“Croatia simply isn’t a reliable transit country,” the minister said. “It’s not reliable because they raised the transit fee of oil to five times the average market fees since the start of the war. It’s not reliable because it has made it impossible for [Hungarian oil and gas company] MOL to contract long-term delivery capacities. It’s not reliable because they haven’t carried out the investments needed for increasing the pipeline’s capacities, and the data they provide on the pipeline’s maximum capacity has never been proven by anyone.”
Szijjártó said this meant that the stoppage of oil deliveries coming from the east would leave Hungary and Slovakia “at the mercy of an unreliable transit country”.
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7 Comments
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
MOL was involved in a bribery scandal involving the former PM of Croatia that resulted in an absentia court Croatian court conviction against MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi which was overturned by an international arbitration panel for insufficient evidence. MOL obtained a controlling interest in Croatia’s national energy company INA supposedly as a result of a 10 million euro bribe to former PM Sanader who got a six year prison sentence. Well now Szijjarto is saying that Ukraine is a reliable transit country but Croatia is not. Fidesz politicians have an incredible ability to talk out of both sides of their mouths. It’s time for Szijjarto to do his job as foreign minister and go to Zagreb to do a little grovelling and ask nicely for oil deliveries. He has, however, made the situation worse by making very hostile statements about the Croatian government. His school report card that he took home to his mother must have read “Needs to work harder to get along with others.” As a foreign minister he burns bridges everywhere and what I have observed is that Hungarian foreign policy matches Russia’s foreign policy. Hungary now supports the communist Venezuelan Maduro dictatorship blocking an EU vote to condemn the validity of his reelection. Maduro has blamed right-wing extremists for opposing him. How is it that Fidesz supports communists?
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Because Ukraine is a reliable transit country when viewed from a Hungarian perspective? It’s an absurd retort to the EU to deride another EU country in this manner. Capacity concerns are legitimate but these are technical questions and it’s incumbent on Hungary working with Croatia to expand capacity, something they should have started working on 2 years ago. The location of pipelines and the countries they flow through is not up for negotiation, it’s a product of geography and history and it’s the responsibility of Hungary to maintain suitable relations with countries on which they have a dependency, whinging about Croatia is akin to complaining the sky is blue. More haste and less talk is necessary to develop this route before the Ukrainian pipeline is rendered completely inoperable and Hungary becomes largely reliant on expensive tanker train deliveries rumbling through the countryside at all hours of day and night.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Ukraine needs to pay dearly for all this.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
I’m sure that’s exactly what Ukraine are saying in connection with Hungary, too. The difference is they’re backed by the EU and NATO.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Hungary cannot expect help from Brussels. Hungary should stop supplying electricity as well as diesel oil to Ukraine. Hungary should supply portable generators to Hungarians stuck in Ukraine and affected by the withdrawal of electricity.
Hungarians like American citizens have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without interference of Brussels or globalist dictatorship.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
The Croatians are accusing Fidesz of a great deal of lying on this matter and considering that Fidesz constantly pumps out disinformation I would give a lot of credence to the Croatian statements. This has nothing to do with Hungary not being able to secure oil from Croatia. The Russian allied Hungarian government has a corrupt vested interest in buying as much Russian oil as it can. https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/hungary-says-croatia-is-unreliable-for-oil-transit-sparks-outrage-in-zagreb/
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Did you talk to Mr. Putin, and he told you. Your imagination knows no bounds.