Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Brussels has bowed to Kyiv with a plan devised by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aimed at creating impossible conditions for importing Russian energy.
During a press conference after a meeting of the EU Energy Council in Luxembourg on Monday, the foreign minister said the plan would push Hungary into energy dependency and multiply utility costs for Hungarian families, adding this is why the Hungarian and Slovak governments vetoed the decision urging the process's advancement.
"Let me say that Brussels has bowed to Kyiv and they're fully committed to implementing the von der Leyen-Zelensky plan," he said, adding that the plan would cut off cheap sources of gas and oil, leading to skyrocketing utility prices in central Europe, especially in Hungary.
The minister said the commission and member states saw energy supply as a political issue. Yet landlocked central and eastern European countries do not have the same access to alternative energy sources as western European countries with a coastline, "so it's a physical issue", he said.
He said the rhetoric of his counterparts embraced terms such as "sovereignty, diversification, secure energy supply and solidarity". But the plan would have the opposite effect on Hungary if realised, he added.
"This proposal seriously violates our sovereignty," he said, noting that EU basic laws state that "energy policy decisions are a national competence".
A ban on purchasing Russian energy would gravely endanger Hungary's supplies and put the country in a position of strong dependence, Minister Szijjártó said.
Currently, two pipelines supply oil to Hungary, and the plan would eliminate one of them. So, Hungary would be heavily dependent on transit through Croatia. He said it was "ridiculous" to suggest this would increase Hungarian energy security, and he suggested that Croatia would maximise its profits by taking advantage of its monopoly.
Regarding gas supplies, Minister Szijjártó said that last year Ukraine shut down its largest pipeline, while "Brussels and Kyiv now want to shut down TurkStream", he insisted.
Fully 26 billion cubic metres of gas are supplied to Hungary via these pipelines each year, he said.
The minister said the EU was silent on the issue of solidarity when Ukraine stopped gas shipments and suspended oil transits, and when Croatia multiplied transit fees to five times the European average.
Minister Szijjártó said von der Leyen and Zelensky wanted to cut Hungary off from Russian energy, which he called "reliable and cheap", and force it to buy more expensive energy from uncertain sources.
All this could end up costing Hungary 800 billion forints, presenting an "unbearable economic burden", he said.
Especially now, there is a crisis in the Middle East, the plan should be rejected, he said.
Today, together with Slovakia, "we vetoed a council decision," expressing trust in the commission making serious progress on the von der Leyen-Zelensky plan in June, he said.
Minister Szijjártó said 40-42 percent of Ukraine's electricity imports are from Hungary. It was possible, he warned, that energy supply uncertainties may influence Hungary's ability to maintain its electricity exports.
In response to a question, Szijjarto criticised the EC’s plan to get member states to cancel existing agreements such as Hungary’s gas purchase deal with Russia, which runs until 2037.
"If we don’t comply with the terms of such an agreement, a resulting court ruling could end up imposing a serious financial burden on us of the company that signed it," Minister Szijjártó said. "And the same goes for every other country."
He said several member states had raised the question of who would be the one to pay a potential fine that would be imposed because of the von der Leyen-Zelensky plan.
Meanwhile, Minister Szijjártó said that while Brussels was "constantly criticising Hungary" on democracy and rule-of-law-related issues, its latest proposal "is in serious violation of fundamental EU regulations".
He said the commission was likely to hold off on submitting its draft law on nuclear energy on Tuesday or would only submit a watered-down version.
"I believe this is because of the major industrial ties between the Western European and Russian nuclear industry players," Minister Szijjártó said. "We ourselves see this when it comes to the construction of the Paks 2 nuclear plant, with the French and German subcontractors having been given lucrative contracts by Rosatom… Because of this, several western European countries have shown strong opposition in recent days and weeks to Brussels’s plans to restrict nuclear cooperation."