"We are too dependent" - says Janos Koka
Janos Koka, Hungary's 34-year-old minister for economics and transport wants to both deepen and weaken Hungary's dependence on Russian gas. He hopes that Hungary can become Europe's centre for gas distribution.
"Has anybody responded to PM Ferenc Gyurcsany's recent challenge to haggle a better price out of Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy giant? The economics ministry is planning to make Hungary more valuable in Gazprom's eyes. We are doing this partly because we will be buying far more gas from them once the Russia-Turkey gas pipeline has been extended to Hungary. We will need to import more gas because our gas requirements are going to grow continuously over the next 10 to 15 years, while our own gas reserves, which only cover a fifth of our needs, are declining. The other reason is that we will become more important to Gazprom if Hungary stores the gas that will supply the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. That is, we would hold the region's strategic gas reserves. As a larger customer, we will be in a much better negotiating position with respect to Gazprom, and so we should be able to get a better price."
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