Peter Magyar and His Foreign Policy Chief Want to Cut Hungary Off from Cheap Russian Energy

Anita Orban’s public statements also prove that the Tisza Party would cut Hungary off from cheap Russian energy. Peter Magyar’s foreign policy expert has repeatedly argued that Hungary should switch to LNG instead, which is particularly expensive and would therefore also bring an end to the utility price cuts scheme.

As the outlet Ellenpont reported earlier, that Anita Orban built her entire career on breaking away from Russian energy sources and replacing them with American LNG.

Peter Magyar and Anita Orban (Source: Facebook)

The Tisza Party previously attempted to defend itself by claiming that Anita Orban had long since changed her position on the matter, but that is not true. According to the outlet, this is demonstrated, for example, by her 2019 presentation at an Atlantic Council conference in Istanbul. Even the title of the event is telling: New Regional Gas Marker Dynamics under LNG Expansion and the Shale Gas Revolution.

Ellenpont recalls that at the time, the Tisza Party politician’s employer was the global LNG company Tellurian. Anita Orban rose all the way to vice president at the organization, whose goal is to export the natural gas it produces to the world market in liquefied form, particularly to Europe and Asia. Even more importantly,

one of the largest owners of Tellurian, which employed Anita Orban, is BlackRock, and for a time the company was under contract with Shell, which was then also led by Istvan Kapitany.

The Atlantic Council, which gave the Tisza Party politician a platform to speak, is one of the best-known Atlanticist think tanks and a meeting place for American Democrats. David Koranyi, who has been linked to the rolling dollars, the foreign funding scandal of the opposition in the 2022 election, also serves there as an adviser.

 

In her presentation, Anita Orban told the audience that the global gas market had changed and that Europe had no choice but to respond in some way. She claimed that the American gas industry had been revolutionized by LNG production and argued that, because of increased overseas gas output, Central Europe could replace Russian gas.

Ellenpont pointed out that Peter Magyar’s foreign policy expert failed to mention one very important detail: procuring American LNG is far more expensive than Russian gas. While the latter arrives directly by pipeline, the former must go through several costly stages because of the distance, including liquefaction, cooling, maritime transport, and regasification, before it reaches the region. This also means that

with the proposal the Tisza Party politician outlined in Istanbul, the utility price cut scheme would become unsustainable.

That this was no coincidence is also clearly shown, according to the paper, by the fact that a year earlier, in 2018, the Tisza politician spoke in a similar vein in rather distinguished company: at a conference in Budapest organized by Naftogaz, Ukraine’s national oil and gas company, with the Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research (REKK) also involved in organizing the event.

By that time Anita Orban was already a vice president at Tellurian, so it was no surprise that she moderated the panel titled The Gas Market Before Production, which focused specifically on the medium-term development plans of the Ukrainian gas industry.

Peter Magyar’s adviser not only lobbied for LNG there, but also stood up for Ukrainian interests, Ellenpont emphasized.

She urged Kyiv to break away from Russian gas, in practice repeating almost word for word the theses of American Democratic circles.

Ukraine took Anita Orban’s advice, and now it also wants to forcibly cut Hungary off from all Russian energy carriers. The Druzhba oil pipeline was shut off, and TurkStream was attacked last week. Peter Magyar, Anita Orban, and Tisza Party did not say a single word in response to these steps threatening Hungary’s energy supply.

 

She Built Her Entire Career on Dismantling Utility Price Cuts and Standing Up for Ukraine

As Ellenpont also reported earlier, in 2014 Anita Orban spoke in Washington before members of the US Congress, where she asked the body to authorize exports of liquefied natural gas.

In her strongly biased speech, she claimed that no other pipeline gas alternative was currently available and that the most realistic solution would therefore be access to the LNG market. She added that, in her view, only this source could provide adequate quantities for Central and Eastern Europe.

The outlet recalls that

Peter Magyar’s foreign policy chief not only supported American LNG over Russian gas, but also regularly voiced her pro-Ukraine views.

As early as 2008, she had already clearly taken Kyiv’s side in energy disputes.

Peter Magyar’s foreign policy adviser is the Hungarian representative of various international interest groups. As a lobbyist for major gas companies, she regularly speaks out against cheap Russian energy and in favor of importing expensive American LNG.

Ellenpont also recalls that just a few weeks after her appointment, Anita Orban was already a member of the Tisza Party's delegation led by Peter Magyar that traveled to Munich for consultations with the pro-war elite. Among others, they met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and Alexander Soros, son of George Soros, also appeared at the event. Although no details of the talks were leaked, one of the most important topics may have been the shutdown of the Druzhba oil pipeline, and it was almost certainly also discussed how pressure could be put on the Hungarian government ahead of the elections.

Cover photo: Anita Orban, the Tisza Party’s foreign policy expert, delivers a speech before party leader Peter Magyar’s annual review at Hungexpo on February 15, 2026 (Photo: MTI/Szilard Koszticsak)