Hungary's government reiterated on Tuesday that it would not agree to sanctions that would cut off the country from imports of gas and oil from Russia in the short term.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó protested against "unfair and unjust attacks" because of this attitude.

Hungary has so far approved all sanctions packages of the European Union.

However, it has always let it be known openly and frankly that it is not prepared to give up the security of its energy supply.

The government in Budapest protects the national interest first and foremost.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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Announcing a veto on energy sanctions was one of the themes the Hungarian prime minister used to promote himself ahead of the April election.

His national-conservative party Fidesz won the election clearly, and on Monday Orbán was re-elected head of government by the parliament in Budapest.

Szijjártó reiterated: “We don't care what people think in the East or in the West.

This is a real energy security issue because right now it is physically impossible to run the economy without Russian crude oil.”

“Tied to Russia” by pipelines

As reported from Brussels, the EU Commission is now working on a compromise that would exempt Hungary and other countries with a similarly high dependence on oil supplies from Russia, such as Slovakia, from the embargo for a certain period of time.

In any case, such a solution is not ruled out by the choice of words by the Budapest government.

Communications State Secretary Zoltán Kovács spoke of the need to reach a "reasonable compromise" that is acceptable to all sides and is based on a pragmatic approach.

Hungary says it gets 85 percent of its gas needs from Russia and 65 percent of its oil from or via Russia.

Kovács said Hungary was "tied to Russia" by those pipelines.

Other possibilities would not be created in the next three to five years.

Foreign Minister Szijjártó made the comments during a trip to Central Asia during which talks with the governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are planned.

Hungary supports European efforts to diversify energy imports and is therefore looking to increase imports of crude oil from Kazakhstan.

Currently, 16 percent of the total consumption of oil from Kazakhstan is covered.

However, this oil also flows through the Russian pipelines to Hungary and could therefore also be affected by sanctions.

Expansion of Paks is on hold

According to Szijjártó, 20,000 tons of oil flow through the “Druschba” (“Friendship”) pipeline to Hungary every day.

That is 65 percent of Hungarian consumption.

There are currently no other supply routes to replace the transport of this amount.

The Croatian section of the Adriatic pipeline has significant capacity limitations.

Developing the necessary infrastructure would require huge investments.

Firstly, it is questionable whether the government in Zagreb would agree to this, and secondly, how long it might take.

Also, since Hungary's refining capacity is designed for Russian oil, converting it to other types of crude oil would take time and hundreds of millions of dollars, the Hungarian foreign minister said.

Szijjártó said at a joint press conference with his Kazakh host, Foreign Minister Muchtar Tileuberdi, that Hungarian oil and gas company MOL is the technical manager of a Kazakh-Chinese-Hungarian consortium.

It plans to exploit a large gas field in Kazakhstan.

Subject to the approval of the Kazakh government, production could start next year.

Hungary also obtains the fuel rods for its nuclear power plant in Paks from Russia.

Because transport over land has not been possible up to now due to the Ukraine war, uranium fuel rods were recently flown in from Russia by air.

The planned expansion of Paks by the Russian state company Rosatom, on the other hand, is on hold for the time being, but Budapest has not yet canceled it.

Apparently, they want to wait and see how things develop and not rule out later adjustments to the plans.

The most important concrete obstacle in Budapest is not the commissioning of Rosatom itself, but that companies from Germany and the United States are planned to install the control and turbines.

In any case, it is to be expected that they will no longer be available for cooperation with the Russian state company.

So far, there are two reactor units in Paks, one of Russian and one Soviet design.

Rosatom is to be commissioned with an expansion by two reactors, for which a Russian loan of the equivalent of ten billion euros is planned according to agreements that were made some time ago.

According to Budapest sources (the contracts are not public), the loan is supposed to be serviced from the later proceeds of the power plant.