Viktor Orbán will discuss the resumption of Russian oil and gas supplies on Friday - presumably in Moscow, the prime minister announced at a joint press conference with the Serbian president.
“We live on imports, basically Russian imports: Russian oil, Russian gas”
- said the Hungarian Prime Minister, and continued by saying that in order to secure Russian energy sources, he had two things to do: to ensure that Hungary was exempted from the scope of American sanctions, but after this was achieved,"now I have to ensure that there is oil: not just paper, a permit, but also material, whether it be oil or gas," he said.
"Tomorrow I will continue negotiations for this. I hope it will be successful, and then there will be oil, meaning that Russian oil and gas will continue to arrive in Hungary. And if we have it, you will have it too. We will share what we have with you"
- Orbán turned to the Serbs, also announcing that they would accelerate the construction of the oil pipeline between Hungary and Serbia.
Serbia is currently experiencing an energy crisis that is becoming as acute as possible, and the Hungarian government is trying to make gestures to its closest political ally, Aleksandar Vučić, on several levels. Meanwhile, it is exploiting the crisis to seek further opportunities to gain regional influence - for example, through the expansion of MOL in the Balkans.
The Hungarian oil company would like to buy Serbia's only oil refinery in Pancevo, which is currently set to shut down within days because it is under US sanctions due to its Russian owner (Gazprom Neft), and as a result, it will no longer receive any oil. If Washington does not grant clemency by the weekend, Serbia will no longer produce fuel - and the NIS oil company will have to find a new owner - which could be MOL.
Mol, which is already keen to expand towards the Balkans, has primarily Arab competitors in Serbia, but as we will discuss later, the Hungarian purchase would require the approval of Belgrade, Washington and Moscow at the same time. Although Viktor Orbán has emphasized that this is a corporate matter and the decision is up to the Serbs,
