FM Szijjártó in talks with Russians and Serbians about new crude pipeline as EU would move to abandon Russian oil

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó held talks on a planned crude pipeline between Hungary and Serbia with Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Dedovic and Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Sorokin on Monday, his ministry said in a statement.

“We discussed the prospects of the investment and the current state of preparations,” Szijjártó said. He added that the 180km-long pipeline, with annual capacity of as much as 5 million tonnes, was set to start operating by 2027.

Szijjártó called out Brussels for taking decisions that would “undermine the energy security of Europe”. “They want to ban Russian crude and Russian gas. They want to cut off supply lines. We see the result in Europe: Energy prices are a multiple of those elsewhere in the world,” he said.

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He warned that cutting off Hungary’s supply of Russian crude and gas would double or even quadruple household utilities bills. “We won’t allow that,” he said. “Europe needs to access new sources of energy supply and build new pipelines,” he added.

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