The government is not even willing to discuss the possible Russian gas embargo, because the security of Hungary's energy supply cannot be a matter of compromise, stated Péter Szijjártó in Luxembourg. Arriving at the meeting of the ministers of the European Union member states dealing with energy matters, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported that he would participate in the meeting with a clear mandate,
a possible embargo would "practically mean the economy and the country's inoperability".
As he said, the meeting will also discuss the creation of joint purchasing platforms. - We have no problem with the European Union looking for new sources of gas, but participation in this can only be voluntary, no obligation can be imposed on the member states in terms of procurement - he underlined. Péter Szijjártó also mentioned that
indicate serious technical problems on natural gas transport routes from Russia to Western Europe.
In this regard, Hungary expects the European Commission to investigate whether this is really caused by the fact that the equipment required for the operation of the pipeline system, previously sent for maintenance, did not return from Canada. - If this is true, then we expect some kind of measures from the European Commission in order to prevent the European natural gas supply from falling into a crisis in the short term - said Szijjártó.
Péter Szijjártó also talked about how
Hungary already has three-quarters of the mandatory amount required by the EU for gas storage.
After the trial, Péter Szijjártó spoke at his press conference about how the war and the sanctions imposed in its wake led to an extraordinary increase in the price of energy carriers, followed by a drop in the quantity delivered, which led to a further rise in prices as a kind of vicious circle.
According to the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there was a great deal of concern at the meeting, as Europe is facing extremely serious challenges and difficulties regarding the security of energy supply.
We can see that even in the powerful countries of Western Europe, national emergencies have been declared due to the uncertainty of the energy supply
- said Péter Szijjártó, adding that the amount of Russian natural gas delivered to the continent has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. Péter Szijjártó pointed out that the majority of the supply takes place via the southern route, so 88-89 percent of the total daily quantity according to the contract has arrived even with the natural gas coming from Austria. He asked for the help of his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in this matter, and then the next day he spoke with the Russian Deputy Prime Minister responsible for energy affairs, Aleksandr Novak, who informed him that the outage was caused by the aforementioned technical problems.
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it has been proven once again that the Hungarian government was right that energy supply is not a philosophical, ideological or political issue, but a physical one. At the end of the day, the question is simple: is there enough quantity and does it reach the consumers, he opined.
In response to a journalist's question, Péter Szijjártó explained,
like every other member state, Hungary also has an emergency scenario, regardless of the current situation, but our country's energy supply is currently safe.
Source: Hungarian Nation
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