Csaba Joó (M1 News): I’d like to ask both presidents how much the current negotiations have improved Hungary’s security of supply. Here I’m thinking of gas and nuclear energy.
Answer from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
My message to Russian journalists is that nowadays in Western Europe the price that households are paying for gas and electricity has doubled or tripled. This is a serious challenge for families. There’s only one exception, only one country where this hasn’t happened, and that country is Hungary. In Hungary, for several years there have been reductions in household utility bills. And the most important condition for this has been Russian gas. If there’s Russian gas, then there’s a cheap supply for Hungarian families, and there are reductions in utility bills. If there’s no Russian gas, there are no reductions. This is why it’s of great importance for all Hungarian households that today we’ve managed to agree – or are very close to agreeing – an increase of 1 billion cubic metres in the annual guaranteed amount of gas supplied to Hungary by Russia. With today’s agreement we’ve finally secured Hungary’s energy supply; and by confirming our agreement on Paks [nuclear power plant] we’ve made it possible that by 2030 90 per cent of energy used in Hungary will be from non-fossil sources. This requires cooperation between Russia and Hungary on nuclear power. Without Paks we cannot have sound climate policy in Hungary ; but today’s agreement has also laid the foundations for that.
Question from a journalist from the Russian news agency Interfax: Mention has been made of cooperation related to the coronavirus. When can we expect the production of the Sputnik V vaccine in Hungary? Can we look forward to Hungary purchasing Sputnik Light, and is production [in Hungary] of the Sputnik Light vaccine also possible?
Answer from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Seven testing stages have to be completed before Sputnik Light can be distributed in Hungary. Six of these have been successfully completed, and the seventh will be completed soon. So Hungary will also buy Sputnik Light. We’re a country where all types of vaccine are available; and as our experience of the Russian vaccine – which is powerful, reliable and successful – has been good, it’s right that Hungarian citizens should have access to a sufficient quantity of that vaccine. The new Hungarian vaccine factory will be operational at the end of the year. This factory will operate on a modular basis: we’ll be able to produce all kinds of vaccines, and we’ll also produce Sputnik vaccines if we’re able to come to an agreement – and why shouldn’t we be able to?
Answer from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Béla Veres (MTVA): Did the meeting raise new opportunities for economic cooperation that we’ve heard little or nothing about?
First of all, one needs to keep in mind the fact that the Russian economy has weathered the sanctions that have been imposed on it in recent years, and weathered them extremely well. So if you look at the numbers, you’ll see that the Russian economy is much stronger than is generally thought in the West. And so Russia is not only a country of old opportunities, but also of new opportunities, and we’ve discussed these new opportunities today. I have to say that the sanctions policy introduced against Russia has done more harm to Hungary than to Russia. Russia has built up capacities to substitute imports in areas which we used to supply with products from Hungary. So we’ve lost a market. Russia has been forced to develop in a way which has resulted in some countries in Western Europe, such as Hungary, losing markets for certain products. You can see from this that the effect of the sanctions policy has been the opposite of that which was intended. This is why I believe that it’s an unsuccessful instrument in international politics, and one that’s doomed to failure; and I don’t believe that it’s appropriate, either for Russia or for any other country. As for new opportunities, there’s been a huge investment in Hungary on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, with construction of Europe’s most modern container-based transhipment terminal. This is capable of transhipping large quantities of containers much faster than any other transhipment point in Europe which has contact with Russia or Ukraine. This is a huge opportunity, and we’re now discussing how to exploit the business potential of this with a joint Russian-Hungarian transport company. As I see it, this agreement could be concluded between our rail companies. This is a completely new opportunity, which will increase the Hungarian economy’s performance by orders of magnitude. This cooperation will be able to effectively exploit a characteristic of Hungary’s geography: its very favourable location, through which arterial pipelines, energy lines, roads and railways need to pass in both East-West and North-South directions.
Answer from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Question from a journalist in Russian: I’d like to put my question to both leaders. For a leader of a country that’s a member of both the European Union and NATO, how do you assess the negotiations in relation to NATO and the OSCE? And to the President, the responses we’ve received to our questions expressing concerns haven’t really met with an appropriate response. All the same, how will you respond to these things? And perhaps most importantly, perhaps you’ll tell us what your response will be and how you can characterise the security situation; because there are already voices in Kiev saying that if the Minsk Protocol isn’t implemented, the country will split in two.
The situation is serious. The differences are also significant. Russia’s demands are known to the whole world, and it’s clear that they’re not met by the response to them. So at the moment there’s a great distance between Russia’s security needs and the willingness of NATO members to satisfy them. Although this distance is significant, it’s not unbridgeable. Today I’ve been convinced that the existing differences in positions can be bridged and that it’s possible to reach an agreement that guarantees peace, guarantees Russia’s security, and is acceptable to NATO members. Such an agreement is possible, and I’m confident that in the coming days and weeks negotiations will result in such an agreement.
Answer from President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.