Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the 5th LNG Summit in Budapest that the Slovak-Hungarian interconnector enhanced pipeline capacity between Hungary and Romania.
The foreign minister said a supply deal with Shell on LNG and cooperation with Azerbaijan in the area of gas supplies was also an achievement. Minister Szijjártó said it was regrettable that “Western partners” had “abandoned” Romania’s LNG project, adding that nevertheless Romania would hopefully start production in the future and Hungary would be among potential purchasers of its LNG. The minister accused the European Union of reducing aid for energy infrastructure developments in south-east Europe, insisting that those projects were key for diversification. He slammed the European Commission, saying its position was that “developing the network was unnecessary because natural gas had no future and it would not be in the energy mix in 15 years’ time.” “Even if that were true … what about supplies for the next 15 years? Hungary continues to reject aggressively and artificially removing natural gas from the energy mix… We consider this economic suicide and don’t want to further compromise the competitiveness of the EU,” Minister Szijjártó said.