In the weeks leading up to Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow at the end of November, Bulgarian news outlet Mediapool reported that Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, made a “lightning tour” of Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Orbán’s second meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine came amid renewed scrutiny of Hungary’s energy ties to Moscow

Meanwhile, Gergely Gulyás, Hungary’s minister of the prime minister’s office, confirmed on 27 November that the Hungarian oil company Mol is in talks to acquire NIS, a Serbian oil firm majority-owned by Russia.

After Orbán’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Bloomberg reported that the talks had touched on Hungarian acquisitions of Russian-owned oil companies in Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, an initiative supported by Moscow. This was acknowledged by the Russian side.

However, the Bulgarian and Romanian governments have been developing their own plans to take over the local operations of Russian giant Lukoil, which is present in both countries.

Sofia, for example, has amended next year’s budget to allow for the purchase of Lukoil assets through the Bulgarian Development Bank. Under that plan, the state would provide a €2bn guarantee.

On 7 November, the Bulgarian parliament passed (in record time) a law to bring Lukoil’s local subsidiary under government control.

A week later, Szijjártó visited Sofia.

According to Bulgarian press reports, one of the topics of his talks with president Rumen Radev was a potential Hungarian acquisition of Lukoil’s local business. The official press release made no mention of this.

On 25 November, Budapest published its own plan to use funds from next year’s budget to buy out national Lukoil assets.

On that same day, Szijjártó visited Bucharest. He spoke at an energy conference about, among other things, how “Moscow is a reliable partner for Hungary”.

To journalists’ questions as to whether a Hungarian oil firm was preparing to acquire Lukoil’s Romanian network, the minister gave an evasive answer.

“If they have the opportunity to conclude transactions and agreements on the international energy market that are accessible and profitable for them, I am sure that they will negotiate in their own interest”, said Szijjárto.

Also on 25 November, the Romanian government announced an imminent “emergency mechanism”.

As in Bulgaria, this would allow the nationalisation of foreign companies subject to sanctions (such as Lukoil’s local network).

Romanian president Nicusor Dan and energy minister Bogdan Ivan both confirmed that Budapest was preparing to take over Lukoil’s local assets.

The move appears to be unfunded at present.

According to president Dan, the aim is to prevent the Russian-owned company from falling into the hands of a Moscow-backed “front company” as a way to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Russia.

The parallel moves in Sofia, Bucharest, and Budapest suggest an emerging contest over control of former Russian energy assets in Southeast Europe, reflecting diverging national approaches to Moscow’s economic footprint.

This article was produced as part of thePULSE** project, a European initiative to support cross-border journalistic collaborations. It was first published in HVG **in collaboration with the Hotnews.ro and Mediapool.bg portals.

**Translated by **Voxeurop