Hungary opts for Gazprom over EU
The Paris-based "International Herald Tribune" wrote on March 13 that "as the EU struggles to achieve a common energy and security policy, the Socialist-led government of Hungary has broken with the bloc by joining forces with Gazprom to extend [the Russian Blue Stream] natural-gas pipeline from Turkey to Hungary" via Bulgaria and Romania. The paper added that Blue Stream will follow approximately the same route as the EU's planned Nabucco pipeline, which would bring gas from the Caspian region to Europe via Turkey. The daily noted that "the immediate advantage to Hungary in joining the Russian project is unclear because Budapest could end up contributing to the construction of competing pipelines." Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany argued in defense of the decision to join Blue Stream that it "already exists" in that it already runs across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey. He said that "Nabucco has been a...dream and an old plan. But we don't need dreams. We need projects. The single problem with Nabucco is that we cannot see when we will have gas from it." The daily noted that Gyurcsany's Socialist Party is the successor to the former communists and that many in the current leadership reportedly have personal and business links to Russia. The Hungarian oil and gas company MOL signed an agreement with Gazprom in Budapest on June 21, 2006, on extending Blue Stream from Turkey to Europe. Gyurcsany and leading Gazprom officials subsequently reviewed the project, as well as the possible construction of a large Russian gas-storage facility in Hungary. Gyurcsany and President Vladimir Putin discussed the projects during Putin's visit to Hungary earlier in 2006. The two men met five times before that and once the following September (see "RFE/RL Newsline," March 1, June 22, and September 19, 2006). // Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. RFE/RL
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