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Hungary considers cooperation with Bulgaria strategically vital, as a secure energy supply would otherwise no longer be realistic, said Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó on Thursday in Sofia.
After a meeting of the Hungarian-Bulgarian Joint Economic Committee, the Minister emphasized that it is crucial for Hungary, as a landlocked country, that the countries along the energy transport routes are reliable. “Last year, 7.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas came to Hungary via Bulgaria. That is an enormous achievement,” Péter Szijjártó explained. “I would like to thank your government for making it clear that we can count on Bulgaria’s predictable and reliable transit role,” he added.
Szijjártó reported that the two governments agreed that continuous investment in nuclear energy is key to maintaining competitiveness.
We are delighted that Bulgaria is willing to use Hungarian technology in this area,”
said the Minister. He also pointed out that bilateral economic cooperation is a real success story, as evidenced by the fact that OTP is now the second-largest bank in Bulgaria, where the largest Hungarian pharmaceutical company has been present for twenty-five years. “Finally, I consider it an important step forward that MVM has established a trading company here in Bulgaria, which further strengthens both regional and Hungarian energy security,” he announced.
In his speech at the Hungarian-Bulgarian Economic Forum, the Minister said that companies from the IT, telecommunications, agriculture, food, water management, energy, plastics, and beauty care sectors from Hungary were represented at the economic forum. He said it was good news that trade turnover between the two countries had exceeded EUR 2 billion last year and that Hungarian exports had also broken the record of EUR 1.7 billion.
Bulgaria is building a new gas pipeline, to which Hungary is connected via Romania. This comes at a time when Ukraine has put us in a difficult situation by cutting off routes. We are grateful to Bulgaria, a reliable partner, w/ 21 million m³ gas arriving daily via the Balkans. pic.twitter.com/pvehfihWZx
— Péter Szijjártó (@FM_Szijjarto) May 29, 2025
At a ceremony marking the start of the work on the Vertical Gas Corridor project to expand gas pipeline capacity in Bulgaria, the Minister emphasized that Europe was facing a prolonged supply crisis, mainly caused by the mistaken treatment of energy as a political and ideological issue. Unfortunately, the energy supply situation in Central Europe has deteriorated significantly following the loss of gas transit through Ukraine.
We believe that pipelines should not be closed, but that new pipelines should be built and pipeline capacity increased, as Bulgaria is doing,”
the Minister made clear.
As Hungary Today reported, Szijjártó highlighted the swift construction of a new gas pipeline connecting to Hungary via Romania, bringing the expansion of the Romanian-Hungarian inter-connector back into focus. He called on the European Commission to support regional infrastructure projects instead of promoting plans that could harm energy security in Central and southeastern Europe.
Via MTI, Featured photo via Facebook/Péter Szijjártó