“Hungary has made an offer to Croatia that it would like to purchase a 25 percent share in the LNG terminal to be possibly constructed”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told reporters in Dubrovnik on Friday.

The politician attended a summit of the leaders of China and sixteen Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC-China 16+1) as part of the Hungarian delegation, on the sidelines of which he held bilateral talks with Croatian Minister for Environment and Energy Tomislav Ćorić. With relation to the meeting, Mr. Szijjártó told the press that “it is a critical issue for the Central European region whether it will be capable of diversifying its gas procurement sources”. “Several scenarios exist for this, one of which is the construction of a terminal capable of receiving liquid natural gas (LNG) on the Croatian coast”, he said.

“It is also in Hungary’s strategic interests for the terminal to be constructed and offer the country a gas procurement source at a competitive price”, the Foreign Minister stressed. “For this reason, we have made an offer to Croatia according to which, in the case of a competitive price, Hungary is prepared to purchase a 25 percent ownership share in the LNG terminal to be possibly constructed”, he highlighted.

According to the Minister, further negotiations are needed and the positions of the two parties are clear. “The related plans have been ready for some time, the intent has also existed for a long time, but no physical progress has been made so far”. “It is also in Hungary’s strategic interests for the terminal to be constructed and offer the country a gas procurement source at a competitive price”, the Foreign Minister stressed, adding: “We do not see the latter with certainty as yet”.

“For this reason, we have made an offer to Croatia according to which, in the case of a competitive price, Hungary is prepared to purchase a 25 percent ownership share in the LNG terminal to be possibly constructed”, he highlighted. “No clear response has been put forward by the Croatian party as yet” in view of the fact that it would like to link its decision on the Hungarian offer to agreements relating to the advance procurement of natural gas quantities, he stated.

“Hungarian state companies will, however, only be securing gas shipments in advance if it also makes sense from a business perspective, because the additional burdens would have to be borne if we were to purchase gas at a higher price than the current gas procurement sources, and one of the important foundations of Hungary’s competitiveness is preserving the results of the utility price reduction”, the Foreign Minister declared. We will definitely not be purchasing gas at a higher price than the current one”, he added.

“Acquiring a share in the ownership of an LNG terminal is a strategic issue, but Hungary does not accept the linking of the two. According to the Minister, further negotiations are needed and the positions of the two parties are clear.

With relation to his talks with Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu, Mr. Szijjártó said: “Both the Hungarian and Romanian governments have done a lot to relieve previously tense relations recently”. “There remain many open issues in Hungarian-Romanian relations, and several events have occurred recently with relation to the Hungarian national community in Romania that have rightly raised concerns”, he stated.

However, Mr. Szijjártó explained that in his view it is in the interests of neither the two countries nor the Hungarian national community for relations to become more strained, and for this reason it is much better “to discuss these disputed issues face-to-face and personally”. “It has been proven that if we negotiate these issues insistently, for instance in the case of the Catholic secondary school in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș), then they will eventually be resolved”, he said. “We are striving to resolve the issues that affect the Hungarian minority as rapidly and constructively as possible, and with the fewest possible tensions”, the Minister highlighted.

On the subject of the CEEC-China (16+1) summit, Mr. Szijjártó told the press: “China is now one of the biggest stakeholders in the global economy and could soon become the largest”. “Amidst the current changes to the global economy, it is clearly in Europe’s interests to develop the closest possible cooperation with the Asian country”, he pointed out.

“According to the figures, we are indeed succeeding in doing this, and bilateral trade flow between China and the EU is increasing year-by-year, but the share of the member states of the Central European region in this is just 9.9 percent, meaning Western countries provide 90 percent of trade flow between China and the EU”, he said. “The Chinese government is open to further dynamizing trade with Central Europe”, he emphasised. Within the framework of CEEC-China (16+1) cooperation, 11 EU member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), and five other European countries (Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia), are holding negotiations with China.

(MTI)