Minister Szijjártó said that all countries had the sovereign right to decide from what source and via which route they buy and access the energy needed for their operations.
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the closing of either natural gas or crude delivery routes is “unacceptable” and goes against expectations that have to be met when it comes to European Union integration.
Minister Szijjártó said in a post on Facebook that Ukraine’s foreign ministry had reacted “rather aggressively” to news reports on Tuesday on rising gas prices resulting from the decision to scrap the transit route leading through Ukraine. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, he added, Ukraine’s parliament had registered on its website a bill aimed at closing oil and gas delivery routes from Russia during a state of war.
“With respect, we must remind our Ukrainian colleagues that there is a reality that exists and that there are rights and obligations,” the minister said.
He said the reality was that the admission of new European Union members required the unanimous approval of existing member states.
Minister Szijjártó also said that all countries had the sovereign right to decide from what source and via which route they buy and access the energy needed for their operations. He said that no outside entity had a say in this, and no one had the right to force “more expensive and less reliable” energy imports onto another country.
Meanwhile, he said that a country that signs an association agreement with the EU and wants to join the bloc had an obligation to contribute to the community’s energy security by ensuring the necessary delivery routes.
That was why, he said, the closing of either natural gas or crude delivery routes was “unacceptable” and went against expectations that have to be met when it comes to EU integration.
