Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto will travel to Moscow on Thursday to discuss further gas deliveries, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party announced.

The “state of emergency” declared

Peter Szijjarto will meet Deputy Prime Ministers Alexander Novak and Denis Mantourov, as well as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. A press conference is scheduled for the afternoon. This visit takes place the day after the presentation by Brussels of a plan aimed at reducing European gas demand by 15% to alleviate the drop in Russian deliveries and free itself from Moscow.

Hungary, a landlocked Central European country, without access to the sea, imports 65% of its oil from Russia, and 80% of its gas, and fears the risk of shortages: last week a “state of emergency” was decreed ” . Viktor Orban, who condemned the invasion of Ukraine, maintains an ambiguous position towards Russia.

He voted in favor of the sanctions along with his partners in the European Union (EU). But he blocked the proposed Russian oil embargo for weeks, speaking of an “atomic bomb” being dropped on its economy, before obtaining an exemption for black gold transported by pipeline. Since then, he has continued to blame this sanctions policy for the deterioration of the Hungarian situation. The EU “shot itself through the lungs,” he said on Friday, calling on EU leaders to change course.