Energy Must Not Be Politicized, Says Foreign Minister

There would be a better chance of solving energy supply problems if they were based on physical reality instead of ideology, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Zagreb on Thursday.

Speaking at a meeting of the Transatlantic Energy Partnership, Foreign Minister Szijjártó said that there are two major challenges to energy security today: one being the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed in response, and the other being the increasingly politicized and ideologically driven nature of energy issues.

It is difficult to heat houses or apartments with ideologies, it is difficult to create any kind of energy source with dreams,”

he said. Szijjártó added that tens of billions of cubic meters of natural gas are already missing from Europe’s supply because of political and ideological disputes, and “we do not want other forms of energy supply, such as nuclear energy, to fall victim to these artificial, political, ideological disputes.”

He also called the issue of green objectives a similar problem, which should be mostly about how humanity can protect the environment and preserve the planet in its present form, but instead, the issue has been appropriated by political and ideological movements.

According to Szijjártó, five conditions are needed to resolve energy disputes:

• national competencies must be respected; the energy mix is a national competence and a matter of sovereignty
• the physical reality must not be forgotten: supply requires a source and a transport route
• diversification must be about increasing the number of energy sources, not changing the geographical direction of dependence
• environmental protection and economic development must go hand in hand
• without nuclear energy, it is not possible to meet green targets, guarantee long-term energy security, or improve economic competitiveness.

Featured photo via Facebook/Szijjártó Péter