The conclusion of long-term contracts with gas suppliers would be the key to solving the energy crisis in Europe. This was announced on Thursday, January 20, by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
“I believe that the keys to solving the gas crisis in Europe will be the filling of gas storage facilities and the conclusion of long-term contracts with suppliers,” leads TASS Szijjarto’s words.
According to him, Russia always fulfills its obligations in the energy sector on time.
“If we talk about energy, I must say that we are very pleased with our cooperation with Russia <…> In my experience, whatever we have agreed with Russia, everything is done on time, as we agreed. We respect this very much,” the Hungarian Foreign Minister concluded.
On January 12, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, blamed Russia for the energy crisis in Europe. In his opinion, Moscow held back the volume of gas supplies to Europe during a period of “heightened geopolitical tensions”, implying that it allegedly provoked the energy crisis for political purposes.
According to Birol, Russia can increase gas supplies to Europe “at least by a third”, that is, by 3 billion cubic meters. m per month. He stressed that the current deficit in storage “is largely related to Gazprom.”
The German publicist Christopher Herstl, commenting on Birol’s words to Izvestia, noted that Gazprom supplies Europe with even more gas than is prescribed in the contracts. At the same time, according to him, a lot of accusations are being made against the company, which sound strange against the backdrop of the European and German parties delaying the certification of Nord Stream 2. The publicist expressed the opinion that behind the accusations against the Russian energy company “there is a political task.”
At the end of December, Viktor Khaikov, chairman of the Commission for Innovative Development of the Public Council under the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, emphasized that Gazprom was fully fulfilling its obligations to supply gas to Europe under the concluded contracts. Vladislav Belov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, agreed with him, according to whom the company fulfills all obligations to supply Europe with gas and even supplied additional volumes there.
The reduction in spot sales was not due to the fact that the company did not supply energy, but because no one wanted to buy them at high spot prices, Belov believes.
Stanislav Mitrakhovich, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of Russia, said that Gazprom is not obliged to supply additional volumes of gas through the spot mechanism and is not interested in this.
#Hungarian #Foreign #Minister #called #solution #energy #crisis #Europe