Natural Gas Europe quotes Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative Director David Koranyi on a new Hungarian law which allows the country to build the Hungarian portion of the Russian South Stream natural gas pipeline project:
“If I had to use one word, I would use ‘alarming,’” says the Atlantic Council‘s Dávid Korányi, Director, Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative, in describing Hungary’s new, eastward-looking energy policy.
A Hungarian himself, and a former foreign policy advisor of then Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, Mr. Korányi possesses keen insights into his homeland’s geopolitical situation.
He says, “It is quite remarkable how Hungarian energy policy has transformed in the past 4 and a half years from something that was very constructive – pro western, pro European, transatlantic, pro diversification – to turning the country’s energy security into an opaque and ominous direction.”
It’s that direction that’s cause for concern, contends Mr. Korányi, who says it builds upon an alleged strategic relationship with Russia that is in stark conflict with Western attitudes these days, in the wake of the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s destructive behavior on the international stage.