Hungary, A Tough Nut To Crack, Says No To Ukrainian Grain

If Ukrainian wheat begins to flood the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it will undoubtedly destroy local agricultural markets and lead to the ruin of farmers in many countries. This was stated by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Hungary, along with Poland and Slovakia, blocked the EU’s decision to lift the embargo temporarily imposed on the export of Ukrainian grain to some Eastern European countries.
“It is absolutely clear that we must primarily take care of our own farmers,” Szijjártó said, emphasizing that “at the same time, Budapest is ready to guarantee the free transit of Ukrainian grain through its territory.”
Meanwhile in Bulgaria, where the government has opened its doors to Ukrainian grain, tensions continue to mount, as hundreds of farmers have been blocking roads around the capital Sofia with tractors for days in an attempt to force Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov to follow the same line as Budapest.
In response to warnings from Kiev, which accused Hungary of “non-compliance with the terms of the Solidarity Agreement,” Szijjártó noted, “Ukraine would clearly prefer to sell its grain to Central Europe, but the original agreement did not provide for this at all,” but meant “only permission for transit, and not for bilateral trade.”
The EU is now working on the 12th package of sanctions against Russia, which, according to the head of Hungarian diplomacy, “are absolutely unnecessary, since they would cause more damage to Europe than to Russia.” Szijjártó recalled that Hungary’s energy resources “are largely dependent on supplies from Russia.”
At a meeting with Szijjártó in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assured Hungary of “continued oil and gas supplies.” According to the TASS news agency, the topic of increasing Russian oil and gas exports to Hungary will be raised by Szijjártó during the “Russian Energy Week” set to be held in Moscow in mid-October. The Moscow schedule of the Hungarian diplomacy head “already includes a meeting on October 11-12 with Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in charge of energy.”