Hungarians say it is a mistake for the EU to replace Russian gas with more expensive US gas

Brussels would completely cut off the European Union from Russian piped gas and at the same time increase the purchase of US liquefied natural gas. The majority of Hungarians think that this is unacceptable and that it would be better to diversify procurement, according to a Századvég survey.

Just one day after the 2024 US presidential elections, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen raised the issue that the EU still bought too much natural gas from Russia and should swap the remaining quantities for US gas. A few weeks later, Brussels’ new energy commissioner said that his “main priority” for his new term was to break all energy ties between the EU and Russia. Dan Jørgensen added that one of his first tasks would be to negotiate with the incoming US administration on the EU’s growing LNG purchases.

Over the past three years, the European Union has already significantly reduced its purchases of Russian pipeline gas and replaced it partly with liquefied US gas. The shift has increased energy costs for the Community and, as Mario Draghi and his team point out in a report published in autumn 2024, has led to serious problems in competitiveness. Since gas extracted in the US will always be cheaper in the US than in Europe after liquefaction, transportation and regasification, the Brussels objective of further increasing the share of US purchases would make the EU’s competitiveness disadvantage deeper and more permanent.

In Hungary, there is also a lack of social legitimacy behind the Commission’s ambitions: the majority of Hungarians (70%) find it unacceptable that the EU should replace a significant part of its pipeline gas purchases from Russia with more expensive and more polluting US liquefied natural gas.

Reducing the EU’s energy dependence is an important task, but it should be done through diversification, not sanctions. Indeed, the Community’s replacement of its previous Russian pipeline purchases with US liquefied natural gas continues to result in a unilateral dependency, and at a higher cost. But if policymakers facilitate as many suppliers as possible to get gas to the European market via as many routes as possible, this dependency can be reduced by lowering market prices through increased competition.

In Hungary, social support for diversification significantly exceeds that for sanctions: four-fifths of the adult population agree with the former.