Hungary has agreed with the Russian giant Gazprom on a new increase in gas supplies through the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and Serbia, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijarto said on Thursday in Moscow at the Russian Energy Week event, EFE and Agerpres report.

Peter Siyarto with his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov Photo: Sputnik / Profimedia Images

“We have established changes to our long-term contract to increase supplies via the southern route,” said the head of Hungarian diplomacy, referring to a meeting he had the day before with Gazprom CEO Oleksiy Miller, who defiantly stated the day before that “there is no guarantee” that Europe will survive this winter.

In a separate post on Facebook, Sijarto noted that “there is no doubt that today it is considered extraordinary if the Minister of Foreign Affairs of a member state of the European Union and NATO participates in the Russian Energy Week. After all, why are we here? Because Hungary has not yet lost hope, and we want peace in our neighborhood as soon as possible.

“Peace requires negotiations, and negotiations require dialogue. If the West and Russia do not communicate with each other, if we allow the channels of communication to perish, we will lose even hope for peace in this terrible situation. We don’t want that,” he added.

Hungary’s foreign minister did not say what the increase agreed with Gazprom would be, but he said it would allow his country to have “secure supplies” in the near term.

Hungary strengthens relations with Gazprom

In a context where the West is imposing sanctions on Russia for its military campaign in Ukraine and there is talk of cutting Russian gas and oil supplies, Hungary is trying to stay aloof and defend that it cannot cope. without these resources from Russia.

At the end of August, Budapest signed a contract with Gazprom for additional supplies of up to 5.8 million cubic meters per day from September 1, which is a significant increase.

The Hungarian company MVM signed two long-term contracts with Gazprom for the total supply of 4.5 billion cubic meters per year through Serbia and Austria, routes bypassing the territory of Ukraine.

The agreements are valid for 15 years and can be revised every ten years.

In early October, Gazprom also granted MVM’s request to postpone payment for natural gas delivered this winter.