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Hungary’s energy security chief on Wednesday (18 September) slammed the European Union for not providing enough support to help smaller, landlocked countries move away from Russian natural gas.
Csaba Marosvari, Hungary’s deputy state secretary for energy security, told attendees at the Gastech conference in Houston that smaller, landlocked states, including Hungary, need more funding to cut reliance on Russian gas.
Around two-thirds of Hungary’s gas imports come from Russia, but pressure is mounting for the country along with some of its neighbors to diversify more quickly away from Russian energy, following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“In our region there are small countries, small markets, few significant market players, lack of capital, these kinds of infrastructure and de-bottlenecking projects can cost up to hundreds of millions of euros – in fuel market terms it is not feasible to fulfill,” Marosvari said.
The European Commission’s move toward financing green energy projects to end reliance on fossil fuels has left some countries out of the mix, according to Marosvari.
“As a result of the war in Ukraine, we received stronger and stronger pressure to diversify faster away from Russian fuels, but they deny the funds to be able to do that,” he added.
Hungary has been receiving 4.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year from Russia under a 15-year deal with Gazprom signed in 2021.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine of February 2022, unlike other EU countries, Hungary was fast to bend to Moscow’s demands to pay gas in roubles.
