Hungary’s Orban Wins Russia Gas Deal as Putin Nexus Pays Off

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

by Zoltan SimonIlya Arkhipov
4:21 PM EST February 17, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, who have built ties as the Russian president grew increasingly isolated from most European Union leaders, sealed a gas agreement in Budapest.

Hungary is “relieved” that it will be able to roll over the unused portion of its 20-year supply agreement with Russia, which ends this year and for which Hungary would have had to pay at expiry, Orban told reporters after meeting Putin Tuesday. OAO Gazprom may boost the amount of gas it stores in Hungary, Putin said, adding that Russia also supports having a new gas pipeline, which would circumvent Ukraine, link with Hungary.

“Every question was settled according to the way our Hungarian friends wanted it,” Putin said.

Orban has often cited Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy in opposing stiffer sanctions over the Ukraine crisis as he sought to balance duties as a leader of an EU country with bilateral ties. Orban held his second official meeting with Putin in a little more than a year, as the Russian leader’s meetings with the 28-nation bloc’s officials became less frequent since pro-European Ukrainians rose up in late 2013 and ousted their Kremlin-backed leader last February.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-17/hungary-s-orban-seals-russia-gas-deal-as-putin-nexus-pays-off

[happyslug]

1. There goes the Vienna-Budapest-Kiev Rail line.

Thus that leave the Gdansk-Warsaw-Kiev rail line of the US wants to get aid to the Ukraine. Fighting in the Ukraine is noted for two things:

1. Lack of Tanks and other tracked vehicles on the side of the Government of the Ukraine (The rebels seem to have plenty of tanks)

2. Lack of Aircraft.

Given the mud of the Ukrainian Winter the lack of tracked vehicles is crucial. Air Power can cancel tanks, thus the lack of Air Power on the side of the Ukraine seems to be critical.

Technically, there is four ways to get supplies to the Ukraine:

1. By aircraft, this is expensive AND NOT available for any mass movement of Tracked Vehicles or fuel. It is a good way to move Horses, Small arms and Anti-tank weapons.

2. Via the 4 to 6 rail lines between Russia and the Ukraine. Yes, Russia is using most of them

3. Rail line from the west, either Vienna-Budapest to Kiev of Gdansk-Warsaw to Kiev. At the Ukrainian border you have to switch cars for Poland and Hungary uses 4'8 1/2 inch track, while the Ukraine uses Russian 5 foot tracks.

4. By ship to Odessa, which is a majority Russian Speaking City (what people speak at home is a better indication of who they support on the front then they technical nationality on their national IDs). This has to go through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, which are controlled by Turkey, who is dependent on Russia for Oil and Natural Gas AND who has also sign an energy contract with Russia that includes replacing the proposed Natural Gas pipeline through the Black Sea, for one going through Turkey.

Now, the VIenna-Budapest-Kiev had one advantage of the Warsaw to Kiev line, during the Cold War the Soviet Union built a five foot gauge rail line 2/3rds of the way across Poland to Southwestern Poland. IT would mean a change deep in Poland to 5 foot gauge tracks as oppose to the border of the Ukraine.

As to highways, what Ukraine needs is Fuel and Tracked Vehicles. Both can be transported by truck, but it is a lot cheaper and easier to do so by rail. I do not know if the roads of Poland and the Ukraine can take the weight of tracked vehicles. My suspicion in no. Thus it is rail or ship.

One last comment, Russia is the main supplies of Natural Gas and Oil to Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States In addition to the Ukraine itself. Will Putin permit the Ukraine to have sufficient oil to perform military operations in the Eastern Ukraine? I doubt it, and given the problem with getting such supplies to the Ukraine, all Putin has to do is shut off the taps and his side wins.

So far Putin has NOT cut off the tap, but if he ever does, the Ukraine is gone. On the other hand Putin does NOT want to end trade with the West, so he is playing a game, as is Washington, about how far can he push and be pushed before someone does something real bad.

[uhnope]

2. Shocker! like Putin, the RW authoritarian Orban is destroying democracy in his country too

Orban Says He Seeks to End Liberal Democracy in Hungary
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-28/orban-says-he-seeks-to-end-liberal-democracy-in-hungary

How Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his populist-right party is slowly destroying his country’s democracy.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moment/2014/10/viktor_orban_s_authoritarian_rule_the_hungarian_prime_minister_is_destroying.html

Birds of a feather

[uhnope]

4. You do know the OP used Bloomberg, don't you?

So it's a little funny for you to try to malign that source. Talk to the OP if so.

The actions and politics of Hungary's Orban are not exactly a secret. Do a little research and find out for yourself.

[uhnope]

10. the comment section is proof that Bloomberg is on an anti-Putin crusade?

To me, the comment section of Bloomberg news being full of Putinistas is evidence of this:

[NuclearDem]

6. Oh for...

http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/prime-minister-viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-25th-balvanyos-summer-free-university-and-student-camp

Since the state is nothing more than a form of organising the community, which in our case sometimes coincides with the country’s borders and sometimes doesn’t, and this is something I will touch on again a little later, the determinative moment in today’s world can perhaps be described by saying that there is a race underway to find the method of community organisation, the state, which is most capable of making a nation and a community internationally competitive. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the explanation for the fact that the most popular topic in thinking today is trying to understand how systems that are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies and perhaps not even democracies, can nevertheless make their nations successful. The stars of the international analysts today are Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey. And I think that our political community recognised and touched on this challenge correctly several years ago and perhaps also succeeded in processing it intellectually, and if I think back on what we have done over the past four years and what we will be doing during the upcoming four years, then things can indeed be interpreted from this perspective. Meaning that, while breaking with the dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them, we are trying to find the form of community organisation, the new Hungarian state, which is capable of making our community competitive in the great global race for decades to come.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In order to be capable of achieving this, in 2010, and especially these days, we had to make a statement that, similarly to the statements I quoted for you earlier, was also categorised as blasphemy by the liberal world. We had to state that a democracy does not necessarily have to be liberal. Just because a state is not liberal, it can still be a democracy. And in fact we also had to and did state that societies that are built on the state organisation principle of liberal democracy will probably be incapable of maintaining their global competitiveness in the upcoming decades and will instead probably be scaled down unless they are capable of changing themselves significantly.

...

What this means is that we must break with liberal principles and methods of social organisation, and in general with the liberal understanding of society. I only mean this with regard to two dimensions for now, I don’t want to go into a lengthy lecture; I just want to touch on the subject so that the importance of the issue can be felt. With regard to the relationship between two people, the starting point of the liberal organisation of society is based on the idea that we have the right to do anything that does not infringe on the freedom of the other party. This is the ideological principle and starting point onto which the Hungarian world was constructed in the twenty years prior to 2010, in acceptance of the general principle in Western Europe, by the way. However, we needed twenty years here in Hungary before managing to determine the problem that although this is an extremely attractive idea, it is unclear who is going to decide the limits beyond which someone is infringing on our freedom. And since this is not automatically given, somebody must decide it. And since we have not appointed anybody to decide it, what we experienced continuously in everyday life was that the strongest decided. What we continuously experienced was that the weak were trampled over. Conflicts on the acceptance of mutual freedom are not decided according to some abstract principle of justice, but what happens instead is that the stronger party is always right. It is always the stronger neighbour who decides where the driveway will be; it is always the stronger party, the bank, who decides the interest rate on mortgages, and who changes it mid-term if needed, and I could continue on with a long list of instances that individuals and families with weaker economic defences experienced regularly during the previous twenty years. It is in reply to this that we suggest, and are attempting to construct Hungarian state life around this idea, that this should not be the principle on which society is built. This cannot be entered into law, we are talking about an intellectual starting point now. The principle around which Hungarian society is organised should not be that everything is allowed that does not infringe on the other party’s freedom, but instead should be that one should not do unto others what one does not want others to do unto you. And we are attempting to build the world that we call Hungarian society around this principle in Hungarian public thinking, within the education system and through personal example with our own behaviour. If we look at this same idea with relation to the relationship between individual and community, because we have been talking about the relationship between individual and individual until now, then we see that in the previous twenty years the Hungarian liberal democracy that had developed was incapable of implementing a good many things. I have prepared a short list of the things it was incapable of doing.

[SidDithers]

8. ...

Sid

[NuclearDem]

12. Oops, tiki bar's closed!

[NuclearDem]

9. Whatever you say champ!

Since you've read my posts, you'll clearly be able to link to where exactly I advocate for war with Russia.

I'll save you the time: you can't, because I never have. Calling Putin a piece of shit homophobic warmonger doesn't mean advocating war with his country.

I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before at some point. My memory isn't as clear as the signal.

[marble falls]

13. "Calling Putin a piece of shit homophobic warmonger doesn't mean advocating war with his country."..

But it is calling Putin out for what he is:a piece of shit homophobic warmonger.

I think you're being kind.