Hungary, Serbia to upgrade border crossings

Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, on Wednesday attended a meeting of the Hungarian-Serbian economic committee in Budapest, and said afterwards that calls of Hungary’s leftist politicians to terminate the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant and to stop gas deliveries were “irresponsible”.

“We cannot allow that Hungarians pay the price of war,” he said. Such steps would put secure energy supplies, one of the most important pillars of Hungary’s security, at risk, he said. “I would like to make it clear that without gas deliveries, there will be no heating in Hungary, industry will grind to a halt … without the nuclear plant construction in Hungary, the achievements of the government’s utility price cut scheme couldn’t be maintained, and energy prices would skyrocket,” he said.

Szijjártó called the Austrian and Hungarian branches of Sberbank, which ended operations on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, “the first victims of the European Union’s policy of sanctions”.

He called bilateral cooperation with Serbia an important factor in Hungary’s economic and energy supply security. Bilateral trade jumped 45 percent last year to reach a record 4 billion euros, he said. Meanwhile, Serbia’s GDP grew by 7.5 percent last year, with significant contributions from Hungarian oil and gas company MOL and the OTP Bank, Szijjarto added.