Belarusian ambassador: our Hungarian partners are sort of our lobbyists to get us back into the EU market

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. The paper writes that the Budapest and Minsk governments have also decided on a nuclear cooperation.

According to their report, the Belarusian government's ambassador to Hungary gave an interview to his country's state TV, and said that the most sensitive issue for them is the loss of their portfolio, which includes sanctioned products such as mineral fertilizers and processed wood.

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.

- the portal quoted Ambassador Uladzimir Ulakhovich as saying. He also said that his country has many friends in Europe 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 EP stressed the importance of strengthening EU unity with regard to Belarus, "including the diplomatic isolation of the current regime".

The resolution stated that the EP "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 that "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".

It was also last week that 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 in order for it to be handed over as soon as possible.