‘Brussels has bent the knee to Kyiv with the plan by Ursula von der Leyen and Volodymyr Zelenskyy that is aiming to make Russian energy imports into Europe impossible, which would make our country dependent and would multiply the utility cost of Hungarian families, therefore Hungarian and Slovakian government vetoed the decision urging the advancement of the proposal,’ Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó of Hungary stated on Monday, 16 June in Luxembourg, as quoted by the Hungarian state news agency MTI.
The Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade has travelled to Luxembourg for the meeting of the European Union’s Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council.
Speaking at a press conference after the Energy Council meeting, he also stated that the attendees had mainly discussed a joint plan between European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, which, according to him, would double or triple the cost of energy for Hungarian people. ‘Brussels is showing a total commitment to executing the Leyen-Zelenskyy plan,’ he added.
The Minister went on to say: ‘My colleagues listed some very fine principles: sovereignty, diversification, energy security, solidarity. However, the fact is that if the von der Leyen-Zelenskyy plan goes into effect, Hungary will be subject to the opposite of all these. This proposal is a serious violation of our sovereignty, since the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that energy policy decisions are a national competence.’
Hungary imports the vast majority of its annual natural gas consumption from Russia, 7.5 billion cubic metres out of the total 8.5 billion cubic metres, as of 2023.
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