Orban: Bureaucrats are to blame for EU energy crisis
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban asserts that his country will not face a deficit in gas and oil this coming winter and that the EU is to blame for its energy crisis.
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Reuters)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blamed bureaucrats and environmentalists for the EU's energy insufficiency, arguing that Hungary is protected from the crisis.
Orban wrote, on Saturday, via his Facebook account “If we want to dig to the bottom of the problems, we always end up in the same place: the issue of energy. And the situation is that Europe has run out of energy,” noting that the blame is on “fundamentalist greens and the bureaucrats” playing “geopolitical games.”
The PM argued that the EU has refused to take up “different energy sources” for “political reasons,” thus contributing to the growing inflation resulting in increased cost of living.
“There are few continents in such a difficult situation as ours, but only our continent is making its own life so much harder,” promising to do everything “needed by the homeland.”
"There won't be an energy deficit. This is a statement of fact, not a forecast. Hungary will have adequate electricity and gas," declared Orban.
Hungary on Gazprom and Russian sanctions
Russia's energy giant Gazprom started supplying additional gas to Hungary at a rate of 2.6 million cubic meters of gas per day above the agreed volumes via TurkStream, Hungarian state secretary for international representation Tamas Menczer confirmed on August 13.
Menczer said that the Hungarian government made the decision to purchase some 700 million cubic meters of natural gas in addition to the agreed quantities.
He indicated that "Given today's European market conditions, it is clear that procuring such a large quantity is impossible without Russian sources."
It is noteworthy that Hungary stands as the only country in the EU that opposed sanctions against Russia. The country imports 65% of its oil and 80% of its gas from Russia.
Last September, Hungary signed two long-term contracts with Gazprom. Via gas pipelines passing through Serbia and Austria and bypassing Ukraine, Russia will supply Hungary with a total of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas.
This agreement is scheduled to last for 15 years, but it may be reviewed within 10 years depending on the start of its implementation.
The EU is preparing for a gas shortage this winter. On a proposal from the European Commission, European energy ministers had approved a 15% reduction in their gas consumption between August 1 and March 31, compared to their average consumption over the same period in the past five years.
