Foreign minister: Central Europe’s energy supply security issue

Central Europe’s energy supply is a security issue, and it will only be properly dealt with if the necessary infrastructural developments are carried out with the help of EU or US funding, Hungary’s foreign minister said in Washington on Wednesday.

Péter Szijjártó is in the US capital to meet with US Energy Secretary Rick Perry, leading energy company executives and to give a talk at the World Gas conference.

Central Europe’s energy security and the need for the region to end its one-sided energy dependency is a recurring topic among major global political players, Szijjártó said.

But, he added, the US or EU-funded infrastructure investments that could make this happen are not there.

Until the United States or the European Union provides funding for major central European energy infrastructure developments, the prospect of central European countries importing gas from the US or any other part of the world “will remain but a dream”, Szijjártó said. This is why it is important to “put an end to the use of double talk and double standards” and for global political players to look at the issue of Europe’s energy security as something other than “stakes in their geopolitical games”, the minister added.