Hungary urges renewal of EU-Azerbaijan strategic partnership, says Hungarian FM in Baku

Hungary urges the European Union and Azerbaijan to reach an agreement on renewing their strategic partnership because the most likely scenario for diversifying Europe’s gas supply is importing gas from Azerbaijan, Hungary’s foreign minister said after talks with Azeri officials in Baku on Friday.

Péter Szijjártó met Azerbaijan’s prime minister, as well as the foreign, economy and farm ministers.

The talks yielded a cooperation agreement between Hungary’s Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy and a renewal of a cooperation pact between the Balassi Institute and the Azerbaijan University of Languages.

Szijjártó said

Hungary was a firm supporter of the renewal of the EU’s strategic partnership with Azerbaijan,

arguing that “the most probable and most viable scenario for ensuring Europe’s energy security in the medium term” was transporting gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, and specifically central Europe.

He noted that at the end of May, Azerbaijan began transmitting gas through its pipeline linked to Turkey. Now the burden is on Europe to create the infrastructure necessary to transport the gas arriving in southeast Europe to central Europe, he added. For now, Azerbaijan will transport 10 billion cubic metres of gas to southeast Europe a year, but this amount will double within a few years once Azerbaijan completes the exploitation of another gas field, Szijjártó said.