Hungary – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán received Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev at his office in the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest on 30 January. The two leaders mainly discussed energy issues, which have become more crucial than ever for Europe with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of their talks, Viktor Orbán announced, among other things, that “Hungary [had] raised the level of cooperation with Azerbaijan to the level of a privileged strategic partnership. (…)
For us, Azerbaijan was one of our friends and it has now become a strategically important country for all of Europe.”
The joint statement also stressed that “not only Europe but also those regions of the world connected to Europe have entered an era of danger”, and that
“the need for energy diversification will strengthen Azerbaijan’s value”,
which is for its part committed to “improving energy security in Europe.”
On this occasion, Hungary and Azerbaijan signed seven different agreements on cooperation in the fields of natural gas, agriculture, space exploration, and migration, among others. It should be noted that according to one of these agreements with Baku, the amount of natural gas being sent to Europe from Azerbaijan should double by 2027.
This meeting between Viktor Orbán and Ilham Aliyev came after December’s Bucharest summit, where Hungary, Romania, Georgia, and Azerbaijan agreed to build the world’s longest underwater power line across the Black Sea.
