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On Sep. 9, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told the Fighter’s Hour podcast that President Trump had not given any indication to Hungary that it should cease importing oil from Russia. Yet, on Sep. 12, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright spoke with officials in Brussels about the European Union’s plan to phase out all Russian energy imports by 2027, advocating that they replace it with supplies of liquefied natural gas from the United States.
Political news outlet Politico asked point-blank whether this meant that countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which have repeatedly resisted the European Commission’s entreaties to phase out Russian gas, should finally cut their supply and seek out other sources. Wright’s response was definitive.
“We want to displace all Russian gas. President Trump, America, and all the nations of the EU, we want to end the Russian-Ukraine war,” Wright said. “The more we can strangle Russia’s ability to fund this murderous war, the better for all of us,” he said. “So, the answer to your question is absolutely.”
To that end, Wright called on European countries to also find alternatives to Russian nuclear energy, saying, “We want to see nuclear technology coming from the United States or within the EU itself.” The day before, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) annulled a European Commission decision approving state aid for the upgrade of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant. According to the ruling, the EC should have verified whether awarding the contract for the construction of two reactors to the Russian state firm Rosatom was in line with EU public procurement rules. Hungary did not seem receptive.
“This judgment will not restrict or slow to any degree the advance of the investment,” Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in response to the CJEU ruling. “On the contrary, we have accelerated the investment recently,” he added, saying that Paks II remains a “pillar” of Hungary’s future energy security.
Later, speaking at the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference in Vienna on Sep. 15, Szijjártó noted that French and German subcontractors are working with Russia’s Rosatom, and that Hungary has also reached an agreement to incorporate American technology for small modular reactors.
Meanwhile, on Sep. 16, in response to comments from the Finnish and Latvian presidents urging Hungary and Slovakia to halt imports of Russian crude and gas, Szijjártó criticized what he called the “astonishing” failure of some European leaders to recognize geographic constraints. He noted the irony of Baltic and Northern European countries with seacoasts advising landlocked Hungary on energy policy.
“They forget one tiny detail: Hungary is landlocked. We have no coastline where an LNG terminal or refinery could be built overnight,” he said.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of September 19, 2025.
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