At the margins of the China-Central-Eastern-European (so-called “16+1”) summit in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán held bilateral talks with his Croatian counterpart, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
Following the discussions Viktor Orbán made it clear that Hungary is ready to find a fair solution to the issue of what role Hungarian oil and gas company MOL should play in Croatian INA. In order to quickly put an end to this “poisonous” issue of the otherwise historically good relations between Hungary and Croatia. Prime Minister Orbán also underlined that Hungary regards this as a corporate, not a governmental issue, but is supportive of finding a quick solution. The Hungarian Prime Minister stressed on several occasions that any deal to this end must be fair. Once we get rid of this “poisonous” issue, the good relation of multilateral cooperation between the two countries can be recreated – concluded Orbán.
Referring to the discussions Viktor Orbán noted that both parties realized some very good developments between Hungary and Croatia. Thanks to the government of Croatia, which was supportive to improve the cooperation between the two countries, especially in the field of economy.
In his remarks on INA, Andrej Plenkovic underlined Hungary’s willingness to support the Croatian government’s ambitions as regards repurchasing the equity share of MOL in INA energy company. The political will is clear, however the Croatian side needs to find an appropriate financial construction against the background of the investment made by the Hungarian side and based on a realistic appreciation of the share price – Plenkovic stated. The Croatian prime minister also expressed his country’s ambition to gain membership of the OECD and hoped that Hungary would act supportively on that.
The prime minister expressed his satisfaction with the growing volume of bilateral trade between the two countries, adding that this year has seen the number of Hungarian tourists visiting Croatia reaching half a million. On behalf of his government Andrej Plenkovic emphasized his ambitions to develop bilateral transport and energy cooperation, the latter including the actual establishment of reverse gas flow between Hungary and Croatia.
