BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 30. Azerbaijan is already a strategic partner for whole of Europe, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban said, making a press statement with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Trend reports.
"The present environment in international relations is more dangerous than it was before. The war in our neighborhood and the sanctions imposed by Brussels have created a very dangerous situation for Hungary, for our energy security, and the energy security of Europe has entered a sensitive period. These new conditions have immediately enhanced the importance of Azerbaijan. The significance of this country has made a kind of a leap forward. Azerbaijan has always been our friend, and now it is a strategic partner for the whole of Europe. Everyone in Europe today understands that our answer to this situation is diversification. We are talking about the maximum volume that can be transported from various sources.
Today Mr. President and I talked about our experience 10 years ago. At that time, both countries were already working on transporting energy from Azerbaijan to Europe. At that time, that plan was not implemented. If you remember, it was the NABUCCO project. Future historians will probably one day examine why the NABUCCO project was postponed. Of course, this happened at a time before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. At that time, of course, energy resources were not transported to Europe, but today we are again facing a scenario where energy volumes should be transported from Azerbaijan to Europe. For this reason, we highly appreciate Azerbaijan's commitment to this issue, and it has signed a relevant document with the European Union. According to that document, Azerbaijan will double the volume of gas to be transported to Europe by 2027," PM Orban said.