Ukraine refused to renew a transit agreement with Russia, which expired at the beginning of this year, to reduce the funding of its aggressor’s war effort against it. While raising costs by depriving countries still dependent on this cheap resource, such as Hungary, it has doubly affected Slovakia, which not only used the gas itself but earned transit revenues on gas shipments through its territory, such as those to Austria.
On Jan. 14, Hungary’s gas transmission operator, FGSz, announced plans to raise its gas exports to Slovakia from 2.63 billion cubic meters annually to 3.5 bcm by April. While Hungary had already increased gas imports and exported surplus volumes last year, it maintains its supply of Russian gas via Bulgaria and Serbia through the TurkStream pipeline.
During a joint press conference with Fico, Orbán addressed what he said were “aggressive and hostile remarks” coming out of Kyiv regarding the irritation felt over the hike in gas prices that stemmed from Ukraine’s halt of gas transit deliveries to Europe.
“This matter can’t be resolved with these remarks,” Orbán said and argued that Ukraine was not in a position “to afford this” given the global shifts he claimed were “working against Kyiv.” He expressed full support for Fico’s efforts to resolve the gas transit issue through negotiations.
Regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations, Orbán maintained that the issue was not on the table and likely never would be due to a lack of unanimous support. He warned that admitting Ukraine to NATO would lead to immediate and direct conflict with Russia, which Hungary sought to avoid.
He was equally dismissive of Kyiv’s other ambition, that of joining the European Union. Speaking in his weekly interview on Kossuth Rádió on Jan. 17, Orbán stated that Ukraine’s potential EU membership “would, for the time being, bring more dangers than opportunities from the point of view of Hungarians.”
While he acknowledged that “Ukraine must be dealt with” once the war had ended and the EU sanctions policies had run their course, the country still posed “a serious challenge, even a threat” to the European economy. If Ukraine joined the EU as envisioned today, then “Hungarian, Polish, and even French farmers can close up shop,” Orbán claimed, unless “sufficiently stringent regulations” were implemented.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó added that the closure of natural gas or crude oil delivery routes was contrary to the expectations tied to EU integration, employing characteristically robust language to call such actions “unacceptable” in a Facebook post on Jan. 9.
“With respect, we must remind our Ukrainian colleagues that there is a reality that exists and that there are rights and obligations,” the minister said.
Szijjártó had also said that the outgoing Biden administration’s latest package of U.S. sanctions against Russia posed serious challenges to Central Europe and called for new resources and transport routes as soon as possible at the European Gas Conference in Bucharest on January 20.
Amidst all these difficulties, Szijjártó said that the TurkStream pipeline had become “indispensable” for ensuring Central Europe’s gas supplies. He noted that Hungary expected everyone to respect the operability of this supply route, adding that security of energy supply was a matter of sovereignty; Hungary considers any action endangering its energy security an attack on its national sovereignty.
The TurkStream pipeline has been a reliable delivery route for years, Szijjártó said, adding that both gas suppliers and transit countries honored their contractual obligations and “behave reliably.” Following a conversation with his new Bulgarian counterpart, Georg Georgiev, on Jan. 21, Szijjártó said he had been assured that Bulgaria would maintain the transit of natural gas to Hungary through the TurkStream pipeline.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of January 24, 2025.
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