War in Middle East has created new situation; we will not allow anyone to make us pay for yet another Brussels act of foolishness

“The war in the Middle East has created an entirely new situation, and we will not allow anyone to make us pay for yet another Brussels act of foolishness,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on his Facebook account on Sunday. 

Therefore, tomorrow, Hungary will officially initiate that, with regard to the new situation, Brussels remove the proposal relating to the definitive ban on Russian energy carriers from the agenda, and commission with immediate effect an impact study on the consequences of the war in the Middle East and pan-European modalities for the elimination of the threat. 

The Prime Minister added: “Sunday, yet, we spend the weekend working. The impacts of the Iranian-Israeli war that broke out on early Friday morning are reaching Hungary. Therefore, this morning we started with a meeting focusing on economic issues, and in the evening we will finish the day with another one. The situation is changing from hour to hour.” 

Due to its energy sources, the region of the Persian Gulf is key for the functioning of the world economy. Therefore, when an armed conflict breaks out in the Middle East, economic and political risks immediately start rising, and are duly priced all over the world, he warned. 

He added that if the war were to spread further, energy supply routes in the region would be in jeopardy, and this would cause prices to spiral out of control. In the past few days, the price of crude oil has already risen by ten per cent, while that of natural gas by six per cent on the world markets. The situation is gravely affecting energy-poor, but energy-intensive economies such as the European Union and Hungary in it, the Prime Minister observed. 

He wrote “It is now becoming evident what a short-sighted policy the sanctioning of the Russian energy sector has been in recent years on the part of Brussels. This has caused serious problems, factory closures and inflation throughout Europe already to date. If additionally, sources in the Middle East, too, are at risk, the European economy will be brought to its knees.” 

On top of this, Brussels now wants to aggravate the situation even further: they want to completely ban Russian energy carries from the territory of the EU by circumventing the veto of Member States, he wrote, observing that this would amount not just to complete disregard for the (letter and) spirit of the EU Treaties, but equally to a brutal curtailment of Hungary’s rights. The Brussels bureaucrats will submit the relevant proposal for the adoption of a decision tomorrow, he recalled.