Croatia-Hungary relations are generally good and the poorest in energy, Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjártó has told the Croatian state news agency Hina, adding that Serbia's EU membership should not be conditional on the Kosovo issue and that Russia is not a threat to any NATO member state.

On Monday, Szijjártó visited the central Croatian town of Petrinja, where he opened a new primary school built after a devastating December 2020 earthquake, for which Hungary donated nearly €22 million. The school will symbolise the friendship between Hungary and Croatia, the minister said.

Speaking for Hina, Szijjártó said bilateral relations were the best in the protection of the Hungarian and Croatian minorities, their identities and cultural heritage, and that this “could be used as a benchmark in Europe.”

The “weakest link” in Zagreb-Budapest relations is energy cooperation, he said.

Hungary “understands” that regaining ownership of the INA oil company is a “crucial issue” for the Croatian government, but “this should not be considered as an issue between the two states” because the potential buyback must be “done” in talks with the owners of Hungary’s MOL, which is not a state-owned company, the minister said.

“On many occasions I have (told) the Croatian partners that we understand this is a problem, but why don’t we separate this problem from all other aspects of our bilateral cooperation?” he said, adding that “the Croatian government seems not to be ready.”

Last month, MOL once again criticised the Croatian oil pipeline operator JANAF, saying its oil transport fee is too high and unjust.

MOL says JANAF’s fees have increased significantly and calls it out for war profiteering, N1 TV reported in January. JANAF replied that the price was the same for all its partners and that it was defined according to an established methodology.

Szijjártó said energy should not be “ideologised or politicised” because “this is a physical issue” since Hungary can be supplied with oil either from Russia via Ukraine or via JANAF.

If the Russian pipeline, which supplies “two and a half countries” – Hungary, Slovakia and “partly” the Czech Republic – was “phased out,” JANAF could not compensate for it because its capacity “is not big enough,” he said.

“If there had been a real will to increase the capacity of this pipeline, something could or should have happened” in the two years since the war broke out in Ukraine, “but nothing has happened,” he said, adding that Budapest does not understand that.

Safety of supply is a key issue for Hungary and JANAF offers booking the pipeline for only three months, Szijjártó said, adding that since the start of the war, JANAF has increased the transit fee “relatively significantly.”

EU needs Western Balkans more than vice versa

Speaking of EU enlargement, he said the EU was “an unfinished project” as long as the Western Balkan countries “are not allowed to be integrated.”

“We do believe that now the European Union needs the Western Balkans more than the Western Balkan countries might need the membership,” he added.

The EU “is suffering from a declining competitiveness, from war, from fatigue, from losing its way in global politics,”  Szijjártó said, adding that enlargement would give it “freshness” and “impetus”.

During its EU presidency in the second half of the year, Hungary will put “a lot of emphasis on the acceleration of the enlargement,” he said.

Hungary is “absolutely interested” in the Western Balkans “to be stable,” Szijjártó said, adding that the Hungarian government is opposed to European sanctions against Milorad Dodik, president of the Bosnian Serb entity who often threatens that it will secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik has been sanctioned by the UK and the US.

EU sanctions “have never worked… on anything,” Szijjártó said, adding that putting a “democratically elected leader” under sanctions would only make the situation worse.

Instead, Hungary prefers “dialogue and discussion,” he said, adding that in frequent talks with Dodik Hungary understood that he “is absolutely committed to the EU path of his country.”

Accelerating BiH’s EU membership should be used as “a common denominator” that will unite BiH leaders and peoples and “cool down” tensions, he said.

Speaking of Serbia, Szijjártó said it “can join the European Union easily tomorrow” and that since it is “the biggest and strongest country of the Western Balkans”, stability in the region cannot be achieved without it “on board.” “Alienating Serbia is the worst possible tactic,” he noted.

Szijjártó explained Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s frequent anti-Western and anti-European rhetoric as due to “a feeling of disappointment” with the lack of progress towards EU membership despite the benchmarks that have been met.

“The Serbian nation is a proud one so … I do believe the approach of the bureaucracy in Brussels should change towards Serbia and that instead of this lecturing mode, they should come to an eye-to-eye mode.”

Szijjártó is against tying Serbia’s EU membership to the normalisation of its relations with Kosovo, saying that it is not “fair” because it does not depend only on Belgrade.

Russia is not a threat to NATO member states

He dismissed statements from Western military leaders, the last one from the Danish minister of defence, that Russia could attack a NATO member state in a few years.

“Why would they do so? NATO is much stronger than Russia… Why would one attack someone who is much stronger? Why would that make sense for Russia?” Szijjártó said, adding, “I do not see Russia as a security threat to any NATO member state at all.”

Earlier this month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that after the European elections in June, his and Szijjártó’s party Fidesz could join the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, which includes the parties of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Szijjártó said the final decision would be made after the elections, hoping that “patriotic, conservative, Christian Democratic parties” like Fidesz “will be much stronger” than in the last European polls.

As a result, he said, “the business-as-usual… comfortable… way of forming the majority with the former rightist EPP or the leftists might get stuck.”

“Then the significance of the patriotic parties will increase and then it will make sense to make a decision” on which group Fidesz will join, he added.