BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 25. Hungarian consortium is starting the reconstruction of Soltanly village in Karabakh, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in an exclusive interview with Trend, as he visited Azerbaijan.
“When it comes to Karabakh, Hungary’s position has always been very clear. We were standing up for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. From the very beginning, we made it very clear that we would be very happy to take part in the reconstruction efforts. After long discussions we have come to an agreement. A Hungarian company put together a consortium of many Hungarian companies and they have been contracted to rebuild the settlement called Soltanly. We took part in the groundbreaking ceremony in Soltanly to start reconstruction of the village in order to enable almost 5000 people to return. We are going to build houses, schools, hospitals, social institutions,” he said.
Purpose of visit
Péter Szijjártó said he has come to Baku this time to participate at the SPECA (Special Program for the Economies of Central Asia) ministerial meeting, which is of high importance for Hungary.
“Connectivity between East and West, connectivity between EU and Asia is of utmost importance for us. We don’t want those politicians, who are willing to decouple and isolate Asia from Europe, to push for their will. Therefore, we see Central Asia having a huge role. Central Asia is a bridge between East and West. We do see this role of Central Asia becoming more and more significant. We would like to contribute to strengthening Central Asia, strengthening the cooperation among the Central Asian countries. We would like to participate in infrastructural development, modernization, digitalization,” said the minister.
Development of Middle Corridor
He went on to add that Hungary is absolutely interested in developing the Middle Corridor.
“China is now the number two import source for the Hungarian economy. Hungary is a number one target of Chinese investments in Central Europe and we buy more and more energy sources from this region, including oil from Kazakhstan and natural gas from Azerbaijan. So, we’re absolutely interested in increasing the capacity of the delivery routes between Asia and Europe. This means that we would like to contribute to increasing the capacity of the Middle Corridor be it a transportation route, railway or energy transportation, electricity or gas. In this regard, we have exemplary cooperation with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania in a project called the Middle Green Corridor in the framework of which we are delivering green energy from the Caspian region to Central Europe,” Péter Szijjártó noted.
Caspian-EU green corridor
The minister pointed out that Hungary is absolutely committed to environmental protection.
“Meantime, we’re committed to the balance between economic competitiveness to be improved and environment to be protected. Therefore, we’re interested in sustainable way of generating energy in Hungary. That’s why we invest in solar and nuclear energy. We are interested in most of the imported sources to be green as well. Potential of green electricity from the Caspian region is huge, as we understand, it is many gigawatts. So, the capacity of the transmission line under the Black Sea should be somewhere around 3 to 4 gigawatts in order to make sense from both perspectives, meaning supply and demand,” he said.
Gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Hungary
Péter Szijjártó noted that Hungary would like to diversify its energy sources, including the gas sources and the delivery routes.
“For us diversification doesn’t mean that there would be replacement of the current sources with other ones. Diversification for us means that we add new sources to our energy mix. Therefore, Azerbaijan is a very important partner of cooperation. We have already agreed on terms of delivering 100 million cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan to Hungary already this year. We are interested in piling it up to some 1 billion cubic meters annually,” said the minister.
Unfortunately, said Szijjártó, it does not exclusively depend on Azerbaijan and Hungary.
“It depends on the infrastructure, capacity of the delivery routes through the South-Eastern Europe. We have already turned to the European Commission to help us with financial means in order to increase the capacity of the infrastructure in the South-Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, so far, the EU is rejective, which is unacceptable from our perspective. They say that within 15 years gas is not going to be part of the national energy mix. We say, number one: we don’t know and number two: even if it is the case, what happens in the next 14 years? While European Commission is putting pressure on us to diversify sources, but they are not ready to take part in financing the capacity increase of the South-East European infrastructure. But we are working together with Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia in order to find solutions,” he said.
Southern Gas Corridor’s expansion
He noted that the capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor should be increased not only from the perspective of deliveries to Hungary, but from the perspective of increasing European demand.
“For us what matter is whether the capacity of the South-East European network can be increased or not. Because the delivery route would include that region from Türkiye through Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania. There are the bottlenecks that should be eliminated, capacities of pipelines and interconnectors should be increased. The bigger capacity such kind of delivery routes as the Southern Gas Corridor have, the bigger hope we have to get access to new sources of energy. So, Hungary is interested in boosting the capacity of the Southern Gas Corridor,” noted Szijjártó.
Record in bilateral trade
“We have really good news. In the first eight months of this year, trade between Azerbaijan and Hungary approached $100 million, which has never been the case ever before if you look at the entire years. In eight months, the trade was bigger than any other entire year before. This means, we are breaking record this year, which is great and we continue to work on it,” the minister said.
When it comes to companies’ corporate investments in Azerbaijan, Szijjártó noted that there is $211 million worth investment on behalf of the energy drinks producer company Hell.
“They are very successful on your market and they would like to locate some production here as well. Our biggest pharmaceutical company called Richter has signed a production agreement with one of your pharmaceutical companies. They will produce medical and pharmaceutical products here as well. So, the Hungarian companies are interested, they started to invest, trade is breaking records and on top of that we are buying gas. It is totally new dimension in our relations,” he added.
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