Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said today that his country will continue to buy fossil fuels from Russia despite US President Donald Trump's position, the Associated Press reported.
Orban indicated that he had already informed his ally Trump that cutting off Russian energy would be a “catastrophe“ for the Hungarian economy. “I told the US president that if Hungary were cut off from Russian oil and natural gas, immediately - within a minute, the economic indicators would drop by 4%. This means that the Hungarian economy would be on its knees,“ he said on Hungarian National Radio.
Hungary is one of the few European countries that continues to buy Russian oil and gas since the start of the war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Trump called on all NATO countries, including Hungary, to stop importing Russian energy, arguing that doing so would hasten the end of the war.
However, Budapest says that geographical and infrastructure constraints make switching to Western suppliers almost impossible. The Czech Republic, which is in the same geographical region and is also landlocked, has managed to completely stop importing Russian oil. Slovakia, which borders Hungary, continues to rely on it, the AP notes.
Despite pressure from the EU and the Trump administration, Orbán stressed that Hungary and the United States “are sovereign states“. “There is no need for one side to accept the arguments of the other. America has its interests, Hungary has its interests,“ the prime minister said.