Speaking in Slovenia’s Cirkovce on Friday, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said natural gas plays a crucial role in Hungary’s energy supply, but one way to reduce this dependency is by increasing electricity imports, which the government is working on.
According to MTI, the minister said that one of the most oft-repeated words in the European debates on energy is “diversification”, which to Hungary means procuring as many types of energy sources from as many resources and via as many routes as possible. Hungary has therefore launched two critical projects aimed at guaranteeing the country’s long-term electricity security, Minister Szijjártó said. He welcomed the successful completion of one such project with the linking of Hungary and Slovenia’s electrical grids. The second one entails the supply of green electricity to Hungary from Azerbaijan via Georgia and Romania, the minister said, adding that the agreement on the transmissions will be signed in Bucharest in two weeks’ time. “This will not only boost the security of our energy supply but also allow us to consider environmental protection aspects and maintain Hungary’s lead position when it comes to responsible, eco-friendly energy consumption,” Minster Szijjártó said. Hungary’s import and consumption of electricity will now become more secure and balanced, he added. Minister Szijjártó noted that Slovenia was the only one of Hungary’s seven neighbours with which it had yet to link its gas supply network. “I have to say that this hasn’t been and isn’t up to us,” Minister Szijjártó said. “We’ve initiated this several times.” Slovenia’s past governments “did not support these plans that much” but it appears that the country is now more “politically receptive” to them, Minister Szijjártó said. He added that there “isn’t really a point in building these pipelines under a capacity of about 2 billion cubic metres”.