After a brief summer thaw, relations between the geographical neighbors Hungary and Ukraine have sunk well below zero again this week.

The foreign ministers in Budapest and Kiev summoned the ambassadors of the other country to express their protest.

The occasion is a contract that Hungary signed this week with the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.

For the next ten years, Russia will supply four and a half billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, most of it via the new southern pipeline via Turkey and the Balkans, and one billion cubic meters via Austria, ultimately via the Nord Stream pipeline.

Ukraine is thus losing its previous role as a transit country for the Hungarian gas supply.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

  • Follow I follow

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

  • Follow I follow

Kiev reacted extremely angrily to this "surprising and disappointing" decision, which was "purely politically motivated" and harmful to Ukraine and mutual relations.

An economic forum between the two countries was canceled and a complaint to the EU Commission was announced.

This led to a harsh reaction from Budapest, and the argument escalated.

The fact that the fuse is so short is due to the history of mutual allegations and hindrances.

The starting point was an education law that Ukraine passed in 2017.

Election interference through Budapest?

According to the current state of affairs, it is stipulated there that the language of instruction "in the educational institutions is the state language", i.e. Ukrainian, and that children from minorities must learn it up to fourth grade. The reason was that they had to integrate and have equal opportunities for further training. However, some subjects can be taught in one of the EU languages, for example Hungarian, with restrictions up to the final grade. This suggests that the law is actually not aimed at the approximately 150,000 members of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia in the far west of Ukraine, but primarily at the large number of Russian speakers.

Since then there have been repeated tensions. In 2020, Kiev accused the government in Budapest of interfering in the Ukrainian local elections. The background was calls to the Hungarian minority to support the “Society for Hungarian Culture” in Transcarpathia and its candidates. After the elections, Ukrainian security forces raided local foundations run by the Hungarian minority. They wanted to check whether the sovereignty of the state in the region was in danger. The occasion was apparently the opening meeting of a village administration, at which the Hungarian national anthem was sung in addition to the Ukrainian. Afterwards, the Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó called again for a freeze on NATO cooperation with Ukraine.

It was all the more surprising that Hungarian President János Áder found extremely understanding words for Ukraine in August this year.

Áder took part in the “Crimean Platform” in Kiev, which was sharply criticized in Moscow, which was remarkable in view of the Hungarian government's proximity to Russia.

The fact that the president, who comes from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, takes uncoordinated foreign policy steps can be considered ruled out.

The Gazprom contract did not come out of the blue

So there Áder said that with the trauma of the partition at the post-war Trianon conference in 1920, Hungary knew the feeling of being exposed to the aggressions of great powers. Hence “we know only too well why the annexation of Crimea is so painful for the people of Ukraine”. In essence, the Orbán government also previously campaigned for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and also supported the EU sanctions against Russia. But the rhetorical reference to Trianon can be seen as the maximum expression of empathy - even though Áder did not forget to criticize the Ukrainian education law on this occasion. The anti-government platform telex.hu even suspected that this should be the beginning of “peace talks”.

The Gazprom contract that has now been concluded, however, did not come out of the blue, nor did the Ukrainian criticism of it.

Orbán announced it on a visit to Serbia, which is the last transit station on the new southern route, in early September, and was already coldly wiping Kiev's concerns aside.

He understands that the elimination of transit fees is unpleasant, after all, Hungary will no longer be a transit country to Serbia in the future, but vice versa.

But you have to adapt to that, "that's the modern world economy".

He did not mention the geopolitical predicament of Ukraine, which was besieged by Russia.