Hungary is lobbying to get Belarusian pellets back on the EU market, as they are currently on the EU sanctions list, Portfolio reports, based on the Belarusian news portal Reform.by.
According to the report, the Belarusian government’s ambassador to Hungary gave an interview to his country’s state TV saying that the most sensitive issue for them is the loss of their portfolio, which includes sanctioned products such as mineral fertilisers and processed wood.
The portal quoted Ambassador Uladzimir Ulakhovich as saying, “By the way, regarding wood processing, our Hungarian partners are sort of lobbyists for us to at least push through our quotas for pellets, which are in great demand in the European market”.
He also said that his country has many European friends and is regarded with great sympathy.
In March, the European Parliament issued a resolution, expressing its regret about Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó having travelled to Minsk in February.
In the resolution, the EU Parliament stressed the importance of strengthening EU unity with regard to Belarus, “including the diplomatic isolation of the current regime”.
The resolution stated that the European Parliament “condemns any action, including high-level visits to the de facto authorities in Minsk, which casts doubt on the EU’s clear lack of recognition” of the Belarusian leadership.
Belarus is Europe’s last hard-line dictatorship and one of Vladimir Putin’s last allies.
Last Wednesday, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó received his Belarusian counterpart in Budapest, and after the 11th meeting of the Hungarian-Belarusian Intergovernmental Economic Cooperation Committee, according to (the Hungarian State News Agency) MTI, he said:
“We will obviously be reading a long list of criticisms and attacks about everything that happened here today, but I would like to tell you that despite all the criticisms and attacks, it was very important that we met here in Budapest today”.
Last week, Szijjártó announced that the contracts for the Paks II nuclear power plant have been amended to ensure the continued construction of Hungary’s second nuclear power plant and for it to be handed over as soon as possible.
Source: euractiv.com
