The truth can always be defended, even in Paris - Péter Szijjártó shared this message in his interview, which he gave on the English-language French television channel France 24's political program Talking Europe.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade was asked whether it was a bad message that he participated in the energy exhibition in Russia, and answered that the energy issue is not linked to an ideological or political approach.

The fact that we cooperate with Russia on energy issues is not our political taste and it is not for fun, but because of the features of the infrastructure in the region, he explained.

He then pointed out that, due to Hungary's location, it is simply physically impossible to supply the country with enough oil and gas without Russian resources. Regarding the suggestion that we could still rely on alternative routes, such as Polish or Croatian liquefied gas (LNG), he reminded us that we cannot buy more LNG from Croatia.

However, the whole picture in the region could have changed if a large American and Austrian company had not let us down, he continued. He then recalled

that the right to extract the Black Sea gas fields in Romania was obtained by American and Austrian companies, which for seven years convinced Hungary that they would start the extraction, we even signed a contract with them, according to which they should have started the delivery next year.

- But what happened? The Americans and the Austrians also announced that it was not worth it from a financial point of view, and they withdrew, he added.

In the next part of the interview, the issue of the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant was discussed, where the reporter once again questioned the role of the Russians.

Péter Szijjártó hastened to point out that the essential unit, the command and control system, happens to come from France.

He also explained that we concluded the contract with Rosatom back in 2014, and that the current power plant also uses Rosatom's technology, so we did not want to experiment with how two different technologies can cooperate with each other.

Speaking about the war in Ukraine, the minister made it clear that Hungary wants peace as soon as possible, but did not want to comment on the conditions under which peace should be established. On the other hand, he stated that we stand for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

Finally, 17 points of action negotiated between the European Commission and the Hungarian government were discussed, which the European Parliament - including Hungarian opposition politicians - voted the other day as insufficient, and therefore called for the withholding of EU funds.

Currently, there are political comments against Hungary, because a conservative, Christian-democratic government has been in office for 12 years, and we are also successful - said Péter Szijjártó on the matter.

- The European Parliament is a political body that makes political decisions, has a left-wing majority, they hate us from a political point of view - he added.

He responded to the suggestion that there is systemic corruption in Hungary by saying that if this were true, then the Hungarian GDP would not be able to grow at a rate well above the EU average. He then asked for the criticisms that question Hungarian democracy and the ability of the Hungarian people to make decisions.

But should we then say that President Macron is not a democratic leader because there are voices critical of him in France? This is natural, since it is politics.

There will always be criticism of the government, but to question the democratic nature of a country simply because there are critical voices, I think is an exaggeration, as there would be no democracy if there were no critical voices, he explained.

We will do our best, it will certainly not depend on us - he concluded his words on the question of whether an agreement could be reached at the beginning of December regarding the recovery fund and the cohesion fund.

2022Plusz: let us add what Áron Tamási said in a radio program in 1940 to the Romanian nation on the question of the return of Southern Transylvania - now addressed to Brussels - that

"you can get used to the truth!"

Source: Hungarian Nation

Featured image: Péter Lakatos/MTI