It is clear that the European Commission is not resting, has not learned from the mistakes of the past period and does not want to acknowledge the reality, even though the measures in Brussels have so far only aggravated the energy crisis, stated Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
According to the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the head of the ministry said at the press conference following the meeting of the European Union energy ministers that it was necessary to be sane during today's clarifying meeting and will have to be sane in the coming weeks, when the European Commission develops and submits its specific proposals.
He believed that the Brussels body wants to make "further hidden attempts" to reduce the powers of the member states and thus a kind of "stealth expansion of powers", which is unacceptable. "We saw that if the European Commission brought something under its authority during a crisis, it only resulted in trouble, and in fact the nation-state's decisions and measures worked," he stated. Although they refer to legislation on the basis of which a qualified majority would be sufficient, Hungary insists that questions related to energy supply be adopted by unanimous decision.
Péter Szijjártó made it known that the security of the energy supply is the most important thing for the government, and that they will not accept any proposals that would make it worse even to a minimal extent. "In our opinion, the good, real and long-term solution would be to flood the European market with natural gas, that is, the European Commission would help ensure that as much natural gas as possible arrives from as many sources and via as many routes as possible," he said. He also underlined that "quite crazy ideas were also discussed at the council meeting", for example, one participant suggested that a lower price cap be introduced in addition to the upper one, so that the too low gas price does not jeopardize efforts to save money .
The minister summarized the government's "red lines" in six points. The first is that the joint gas procurement platform can only be set up on a voluntary basis. "We don't ask for the example of vaccine purchases, all kinds of purchases via SMS." Speaking about the so-called aggregation of demand, he stated: Hungary is not willing to participate in any kind of mandatory joint procurement. "It can't be that while the European Council decided on voluntariness, the European Commission, being smart and clever, just says that 15 percent must be bought together," he said. After that, he emphasized that price cap type measures cannot affect long-term contracts in any way. then called the proposal, according to which the member states would have to inform Brussels in advance, if they want to sign a contract for the purchase of more than 472 million cubic meters of natural gas, nonsense and unacceptable.
In connection with solidarity mechanisms, he described it as unthinkable that natural gas stored in Hungary, purchased with Hungarian taxpayers' money, would be received by other countries. "The European bureaucrats and quite a few member countries are currently trying to banish natural gas from Russia from the European market, but in the event of an emergency, would they accept it from Hungarian storage facilities?" he asked the question. Finally, he reported that Hungary's experiences do not necessarily coincide with those of Western European countries regarding which suppliers are reliable. The Russian Gazprom supplies the contracted quantity without disturbance, while our country has already been let down by two Western companies regarding the exploitation of Romanian offshore fields.
Péter Szijjártó emphasized that the Hungarian decisions made within the national jurisdiction have worked, so the amount of gas stored to date covers 52 percent of the annual consumption, while the European average is 27.5 percent. According to him, on the other hand, the measures adopted or planned in Brussels until now "have only caused a problem and a danger from the point of view of the European energy supply", which is why the Hungarian government does not support the transfer of national competences. "In the coming weeks, we will also be on the lookout to make sure that no decisions are made that could endanger the Hungarian energy supply, go against the decision of the European Council or take powers away from us and hand them over to Brussels," he pointed out.
Source: MTI
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