Hungary says it is ready to ensure gas transit to Slovakia from the south

Hungary is ready to provide its transit capacities to Slovakia so that Russian gas could flow to the country via the southern route. This was stated by the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Péter Szijjártó on January 23.

"We are ready to offer our transit capacities in full so that Slovakia's energy supply can be ensured," the foreign minister said at a press conference in Budapest.

According to his data, Hungary itself received 7.6 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia last year through the Turkish Stream pipeline. Given that its maximum capacity is 8.5 billion cubic meters, almost a billion cubic meters remained in reserve.

"We are increasing the annual capacity of the interconnector with Slovakia by 900,000 cubic meters to be able to contribute to Slovakia's energy security," Sijjarto emphasized.

He also stressed that Ukraine's decision to stop gas transit from Russia is unacceptable and jeopardizes the energy supply of the whole Europe.

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Earlier, on January 15, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the country together with Serbia will accelerate the construction of an oil pipeline between the two countries against the background of U.S. sanctions, which undermine European energy security.

After, on January 17, the Eurostat database noted that in January-November 2024, the Netherlands increased purchases of Russian oil, and they were 1.5 times higher than the figure for the same period in 2023. Thus, in the first 11 months of 2024, Amsterdam purchased oil from Moscow for €580.8 million. In addition, Russian oil was purchased by Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Germany.

Vice-speaker of the Slovak Parliament Tibor Gašpar said on January 19 that due to the decision of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (his powers expired on May 20, 2024) to stop Russian gas supplies through the Ukrainian territory, the EU could suffer damage worth €70 billion. According to him, Slovakia will respond to such actions of the head of the Kiev regime by reducing or stopping humanitarian aid.

At the end of August 2024, Zelensky said that the country would not extend the gas transit agreement with Russia, which expired at the end of 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin later indicated that Moscow was not giving up gas transit through Ukraine.