“Energy is an issue of national security, and for precisely this reason the Hungarian government is striving to ensure that natural gas can arrive in Hungary from as many sources and via as many routes as possible”, State Secretary for Information and the International Representation of Hungary Tamás Menczer said in Gorska Polyana, Bulgaria, where he jointly inaugurated a gas metering station and 11 kilometres of gas pipeline with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

“The construction of the Southern Gas Corridor is a certain source of route diversification and also provides an opportunity for source diversification”, the State Secretary said. “Source and route diversification not only facilitates a secure energy supply, but also ensures that commercial and industrial consumers have access to cheap gas and that utility prices remain low, because all this is vital to maintaining competitiveness in a continuously changing world”, the State Secretary said, adding that cooperation with relation to the natural gas supply is reinforcing the whole region.

Shipments of natural gas from Russia to the Turkish market will already be beginning this year via the first Turkish Stream pipeline, and the second strand of the pipeline is also under construction, with the gas arriving having the opportunity to be transported along the Southern Gas Corridor along the Bulgaria-Serbia-Hungary route.  During his visit to Bulgaria, Mr. Menczer will also be meeting with Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Petko Doykov and Deputy Interior Minister Milko Berner in Sofia. “Similarly to Hungary, Bulgaria also refused to support the UN Global Compact for Migration and is protecting its border from immigrants using a security fence”, the State Secretary pointed out.

(MTI)