While Washington, Brussels, and Kyiv have remained silent as Western European states like Belgium, Spain, and France have significantly increased their imports of Russian gas, Hungary, which has decided to do the same, has received sharp criticism from both high-level Ukrainian officials and America’s ambassador to Hungary.
A new report carried out by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), an independent research organization, has revealed that Spain and Belgium increased their LNG (liquefied natural gas) imports from Russia twofold compared to the same period in 2022, while France upped its Russian LNG imports by 40% during the same timeframe, the EU Observer reports.
“Approximately 27% of the LNG imported by Spain over this period came from Russia, and Belgium relied even more heavily on Russia, receiving 37% of its LNG from Russia,” the IEEFA stated in its report.
The increase in Russian LNG imports by Spain, Belgium, and France comes despite the European Union’s promise to reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels following Russia’s war on Ukraine in February of 2022. Since the onset of the war, the United States has become the EU’s primary LNG supplier, contributing 46% of the bloc’s imports. Russia, meanwhile is the second largest supplier, providing 12% of the EU’s LNG imports, ahead of Qatar, Algeria, Norway, and Nigeria.
At the same time, however, Hungary, which following a visit to Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum late last month announced that it too would be increasing Russian gas imports for the winter, attracted the ire of Washington and Kyiv.
Following Hungary’s visit to China, meeting with high-level Russian officials and its subsequent announcement, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has been a confrontational and antagonistic figure to Budapest since assuming the post in August of 2022, slammed the move and said that Hungary’s “deepening relationship with Russia” needs to be discussed.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief political director Balázs Orbán promptly hit back against Pressman’s comments, saying:
If the question is who’s doing business with the Russians, the Americans should turn down the volume. They are buying more than twice as much nuclear fuel alone as they used to … We are fed up with the [Ambassador Pressman’s] hypocrisy!”
The United States, in the first half of 2023, acquired 415 tonnes of uranium from Russia, marking a 2.2-fold increase compared to the same period last year.
Hungarian MEP Balázs Hidvéghi echoed Orbán’s sentiment in a comment given to The European Conservative, saying:
Mr. Pressman seems to be acting as a political activist instead of a diplomat. However, shaping Hungarian foreign policy remains outside of his remit. Maintaining good diplomatic relations is not, but apparently, that’s something he is not interested in.
Previously, Ukraine has claimed Hungary’s continued importation of Russian gas is tantamount to sponsoring war crimes.
“You have to be completely blind not to see what kinds of crimes you are sponsoring. Buying more gas from the Russians means you are giving them more capacity to escalate the war,” Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in April after Hungary signed new energy deals with Russia.
