Hungary's Foreign Minister Anita Orban Says Budapest Will Meet the EU Timeline to Phase Out Russian Gas and Hopes to Buy More US LNG
Hungarian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Anita Orban told the Hungarian outlet Telex on November 4 that the European Union has set a clear timeline for ending Russian gas imports, with the final stage in autumn 2027, and that Hungary intends to meet it. The statement marks a clear break with the previous Hungarian government: former foreign minister Peter Szijjarto had called the EU phase-out a violation of member states' right to choose their own suppliers and vowed to challenge it at the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Orban also said Prime Minister Peter Magyar's government hopes to buy more American liquefied natural gas and wants a new agreement with Washington to make that possible. Hungary's energy ministry had already signaled in September that it would stop buying Russian gas from October 2027, while calling the EU measure a political decision; Budapest was then negotiating with Romania and LNG suppliers for replacement volumes.
The oil deadline is tighter. A temporary US sanctions exemption that lets Hungary keep buying crude from Rosneft and Lukoil expires on November 21, and Hungarian energy company MOL is checking whether non-Russian crude can reach Hungary through Croatia's JANAF pipeline and preparing its refineries to process alternative crude.
Hungary has been one of the EU countries most dependent on Russian energy, with most of its oil and gas imports coming from Russia. On October 29, Orban signed two memoranda with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington covering law-enforcement cooperation and energy infrastructure.
Related: Rubio and Hungary's Foreign Minister Anita Orban Sign Two Memoranda on Enforcement and Energy
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：匈牙利 Mosonmagyaróvár 的 Égáz-Dégáz 天然气配送设施资料图。CC BY-SA，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Egaz-Degaz natural gas distribution facility in Mosonmagyarovvar, Hungary, file photo. CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons.
