Ukraine and Hungary summoned each other’s ambassadors on Sept. 28 to discuss the rift between the two countries over Budapest signing a new 15-year natural gas supply deal with Russia’s state company Gazprom on Sept. 27.
Ukraine, which stands to lose millions of dollars in transit payments as a result, considers the deal a “purely political, economically unreasonable decision,” which will hurt Ukraine’s national security and its relations with Hungary.
“The ministry invites the Hungarian ambassador to Kyiv to convey our principled position: gas transportation bypassing Ukraine undermines both our country’s national security and Europe’s energy security,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, told the Kyiv Post. “Ukraine will take decisive measures to protect our national interests.”
The Foreign Ministry asked the European Union to review whether the Russian-Hungarian agreement complies with European energy laws.
Budapest responded by accusing Ukraine of meddling in its internal affairs and calling in the Ukrainian ambassador to assert Hungary’s position.
In a Facebook post, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called Ukraine’s appeal to the European Commission “deeply outrageous” and a “serious violation of our sovereignty and national security interests.”
“This unfriendly step comes after all the support that Ukraine has received from us so far (ventilation machines, health equipment, military care, financing investments),” he wrote.
Szijjártó stressed that “Ukrainians have nothing to do with whom we agree and on what,” and the agreement is profitable for Hungary as it guarantees its energy security “in a world full of uncertainties.”
Russia used to ship natural gas primarily through Ukrainian pipelines, which provided Ukraine with transit fees and leverage. In recent years, Russia has been trying to diversify its export routes to go around Ukraine.
The just-completed $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea allows Russia to double the amount of gas directly to Germany when it becomes operational — to 110 billion cubic meters yearly. This may lead Ukraine to lose at least $1.5 billion in transit fees per year.
The TurkStream pipeline running from Russia to Turkey, which was completed in January 2020, may make Ukraine lose about $450 million per year, according to estimates. Serbian company Srbijagas and Hungary’s pipeline operator FGSZ linked up with TurkStream in July. Both the Balkan and Turkish stream projects have drastically reduced the volume of gas going through Ukraine.
Under the Sept. 27 deal with Hungary, Gazprom will ship 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Hungary annually via Serbia and Austria.
“Hungary will start receiving Gazprom’s gas starting from Oct. 1 already via TurkStream and the pipelines of South-Eastern Europe,” Gazprom’s head Alexei Miller said in a statement.
Read more: Gas prices continue to soar, Putin blames Europe
This is not the first rocky period for Ukrainian-Hungarian relations. Budapest had previously protested Ukraine’s language law, which makes Ukrainian the only official language in state schools from the fifth grade onward. Szijjártó had said that this infringes on the rights of minorities in Ukraine.
The Hungarian minority accounts for around 10 percent of the 1.2 million population of Zakarpattya, Ukraine’s smallest western oblast on the border with Hungary.
Also, Ukraine has accused Hungary of issuing Hungarian passports to Ukrainians and promoting Hungarian national parties in Ukraine.
In recent years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has blocked Ukraine’s cooperation with the European Union and NATO on multiple occasions. However, Hungary backtracked, allowing Ukraine to become NATO’s enhanced opportunity partner in June 2020.
