Hungary Suffers Nearly €1.5 Billion Loss as Orban Government Buys Gas from Russia Instead of Stock Market

Hungary has lost hundreds of millions of euros because the Orban Cabinet decided to buy Russian gas instead of purchasing it on European energy markets, explaining that it is "safer to deal with a reliable partner," the Hungarian newspaper Népszava writes.

According to the newspaper, the financial loss Hungary suffered due to gas purchases from Russia reached HUF 564 billion (EUR 1.43 billion) in the last year alone. This is due to the fact that the current Hungarian-Russian gas purchase contract was signed in 2021, at the beginning of the European energy price crisis. The media calculated this loss based on data for December 2023 recently released by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

In October 2021, the Hungarian government signed a gas purchase contract with Russia. Officially, the deal involved two state-owned companies: Russia's Gazprom and Hungary's MVM. However, the terms were worked out at the highest political levels. 

In April 2022, Hungary held general elections, so the Orban government kept repeating how favourably they could conclude the negotiations. They emphasised that the new contract is much better than the one signed in 1995. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said that the new Russian gas contract provides the Hungarian government's main political product, a scheme to reduce utility prices. The contract, of course, was not made public, citing commercial secrecy. In February 2022, before the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Putin said that Hungary was receiving Russian gas at 1/5 of the world market price. Later, Nepszava revealed that it was the other way round. In its calculations, the Kremlin even added 30% to the market price. However, this did not stop the Hungarian authorities from using Putin's statements in their election campaign.

As The Gaze previously wrote, the European Parliament has condemned the Hungarian government's deliberate, continuous and systematic efforts to undermine the fundamental values of the EU. In turn, the European Parliament collected the required 120 signatures on a petition to deprive Hungary of its voting rights in the EU Council due to regular blackmail and sabotage of the European institution. Orban's veto has long blocked the approval of the EU's long-term budget and aid to Ukraine, despite the positive decision of all 26 other EU members.

Before that, Hungary resorted to another blackmail by putting forward new conditions for the EU to unblock €50 billion for Ukraine without fulfilling any obligations to the EU.