Orbán: Hungary will remain dependent on Russian energy despite Trump

Copenhagen/Brussels, 1 October (ČTK correspondent) - According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, his country will continue to depend on Russian energy, despite US President Donald Trump's demands that all EU and NATO countries stop buying Russian oil and gas. On his arrival at the informal summit in Copenhagen, Orbán said the EU should have only a strategic agreement with Ukraine. EU membership is too much, the Hungarian prime minister told reporters.

"Hungary is a sovereign country. We decide our own energy mix. Secondly, we have no other option. We can get some supplies through Croatia, but that is not enough. We need a main gas pipeline, and that is the Russian one," Orbán said.

EU representatives, its member states and other leaders have repeatedly called on Slovakia and Hungary to stop buying Russian energy. US President Donald Trump also called for such a move in his recent address to the UN General Assembly, and subsequently spoke directly with Orbán by phone about Russian energy. Slovakia and Hungary have long objected to the EU's approach to ending energy imports from Russia. The European Commission has proposed ending all energy imports from Russia by 2027.

"Hungary is a landlocked country. The situation is different; I cannot change geography," the Hungarian prime minister said.

Trump, he said, "respects the sovereignty of other countries".

One of the issues on which European Council President António Costa will seek support today is breaking the current deadlock over the potential EU membership of Ukraine and Moldova. The current rules require all 27 EU countries to unanimously approve each stage of the accession process, but Costa is seeking to introduce the option of approval by a qualified majority, thereby bypassing the Hungarian prime minister's current veto.

"Out of the question," Orbán said in response to the plan on his arrival at the meeting.

According to the Hungarian prime minister, the people of his country themselves decided in a referendum that they did not want Ukraine in the EU. "We held a referendum on this in Hungary, and people voted against it. So it is not my political position that we do not support Ukraine's EU membership. It is the decision of the Hungarian people; we are a democratic country," the Hungarian prime minister said in his defence. "Ukraine is a heroic nation; we must support them, there is no question about that. The question is how we do it. EU membership is too much; a strategic agreement is enough," he added.