Our pipes speak the truth – so should you! – Croatian Minister to Szijjártó

“All this noise is about money. Our pipes speak the truth – so should you”, Croatian Minister of Economy Ante Šušnjar wrote in a post on X on Thursday evening.

Šušnjar was responding to Péter Szijjártó's prior announcement that Mol had ordered crude oil from Russia to be transported by sea due to the Russian missile attack on the Druzhba oil pipeline in Ukraine at the end of January. Szijjártó said that the oil would be unloaded in Croatia, from where it would be transported to Hungary and Slovakia via the Adria oil pipeline.

Along with the announcement, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade called on Croatia to ensure the transportation of the Russian crude oil via the Adria pipeline from Croatia to Hungary. Although EU sanctions against Russia technically prohibit the import of Russian oil by sea, Hungary and Slovakia are exempt from this rule if their supply by land is interrupted.

Ante Šušnjar previously responded to Szijjártó's announcement with a sarcastic post, poking fun at the Hungarian foreign minister's sudden sensitivity to EU law. "It is genuinely heartwarming to hear Hungary speak with such conviction about EU law, European values, and binding obligations," he wrote at the time.

On Thursday, Péter Szijjártó said that the Adria oil pipeline is a "supplementary pipeline" which is not suitable for supplying Hungary with crude oil through it alone. For a while after his announcement it was unclear whether Croatia would allow Russian oil to pass through its territory in accordance with the rules referred to by Szijjártó, or whether it would refuse to do so for some reason. In a statement issued on Thursday, the Croatian Ministry of Economy wrote that no agreement had yet been reached with the Hungarians on the transport of crude oil.

According to their statement, "there is no political agreement or any other arrangement between the Republic of Croatia and the Hungarian side about the transport of Russian oil. The Republic of Croatia will act in accordance with its own national interests and will fully comply with the existing sanctions regime of the European Union and OFAC. Only oil that fully complies with the sanctions rules of the European Union and OFAC may enter the territory of the Republic of Croatia."

The ministry headed by Ante Šušnjar emphasized that Croatia has the infrastructure that allows for the supply and transit of energy resources within the European legal framework, but will not allow its energy infrastructure to be used to circumvent sanctions or create new dependencies on Russian energy.

In a social media post on Thursday, minister Šušnjar wrote that the oil refineries in Százhalombatta and Bratislava are capable of refining a total of 14 million tons of crude oil, while the Adria oil pipeline can transport 15 million tons of crude oil annually. Based on this, he argued that Hungary and Slovakia could completely disconnect from Russian oil at any time.

According to Šušnjar, the two countries still insist on buying Russian oil because it is 30 percent cheaper than alternative sources. He wrote that the pipeline fee payable to the Croats is approximately 1 percent, which means that prices are not dependent on this.

We wrote in more detail about Szijjártó's announcement and the recent developments around Hungary’s crude oil supply in this article.