The license that would exempt the majority Russian-owned Serbian Oil Company (NIS) from US sanctions still hasn't arrived, so the Serbians are looking for other ways to secure oil supplies, since the refinery in Pančevo has run out of crude oil and has halted operations. However, Serbia is not alone in seeking a solution to this, because Hungary will be its partner, according to what Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a press conference in the Serbian town of Subotica on Thursday.
Orbán noted that Hungary relies on import, and due to the US sanctions affecting this, he has been given two tasks: one is to ensure that Hungary is exempted from the US sanctions.
“The second is to ensure that there is fuel, so it's not just about papers and permits, but actual raw material – oil and gas. In the coming days, or rather tomorrow, I will be holding talks to this end, hopefully with success, and then there will be fuel and exemption from sanctions, meaning that Russian oil and gas will continue to arrive in Hungary. And if we will have it, then you will have it too, because my simple answer to the question about how we can help you is that whatever we have, we will share with you.”
While Orbán did not mention where he would be negotiating, according to information obtained by Telex and VSquare, he will be traveling to Moscow on Friday, where he will meet with Vladimir Putin in person. Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás did not confirm this information in his response to a question at Thursday’s government briefing, saying only that they would provide information relating to this as they normally do.
At the joint press conference with the Serbian president, the Hungarian PM also said that he believed he and Vučić had made the right decision when they decided to build an oil pipeline between Serbia and Hungary.
“We have a gas pipeline, but we don’t have an oil pipeline. And we decided to build one, partly so that we can transport the oil we have here, or if things in the world should take a different turn, you could supply us with oil. (...) It is good to have a comprehensive energy infrastructure between our two countries, so after yesterday's cabinet meeting, I decided that we would speed up the construction of the Serbian-Hungarian oil pipeline. We are not interested in the state of the market, which is completely uncertain and impossible to adapt to," Orbán said about accelerating the construction on the Hungarian section. He also said that in the longer term, they expect that "our fate will be shaped in community with the Serbs."
The Serbian president stressed that there was no reason to panic, as there was enough fuel in the country.
Viktor Orbán was recently in the United States, where he met with US President Donald Trump. We summarized the results of the US summit in this article, but one of its most important elements is that after the Orbán-Trump meeting, the Prime Minister announced that the United States would grant Hungary complete exemption from US sanctions on Russian crude oil and natural gas in relation to the Turkish Stream and Friendship pipelines. Hungary will also be purchasing nuclear fuel from the US company Westinghouse, paving the way for the introduction of small American modular reactors in Hungary.
The US sanctions affecting the Paks II nuclear power plant currently under construction in Hungary were lifted in their entirety, but no agreement was reached on the reinstatement of the double taxation agreement. Later statements regarding the exemption from sanctions were quite varied: Viktor Orbán said that it would remain in effect as long as he was president (or as long as America keeps them in effect), while the US Secretary of State said it was not for an unlimited time and would stay in place for one year.
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