Why Hungary’s Energy Policy Is Less Maga Than Jd Vance Might Think

BRUSSELS — Europeans would pay less for their energy if only they followed Hungary’s example, U.S. Vice President JD Vance argued during a trip to Budapest on Tuesday.

He’s not wrong — but not for the reasons he might think.

“Viktor Orbán has been the single sound leader in Europe on the question of energy security and independence,” Vance said at a press conference to endorse Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of Sunday’s national election, which the country’s longtime illiberal leader is poised to lose.

While Vance didn’t spell out what he liked about Hungary’s policy, a fight over Russian fossil fuel imports has been central to Orbán’s reelection campaign and the Trump administration has railed against renewable energy at home and abroad.

“It is funny to watch prime ministers and leaders in some of the Western European capitals talk about the energy crisis, when, frankly, they should have been following the policies of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and if they had, the energy crisis that they were experiencing would be a lot less bad," Vance continued.

Hungary does have the lowest household electricity prices in the European Union. That, however, has little to do with the supplies of Russian fuels that Orbán is seeking to preserve — and more with big government spending and the transition to green energy, two policies the U.S. administration Vance belongs to has sought to curb.

Hungary is now the country with the highest share of solar power in its electricity mix worldwide, with nearly a quarter of its power coming from photovoltaics, according to the International Energy Agency.

And the country has for years had a utility price cap in place that artificially keeps bills low with vast state subsidies — a key issue in the campaign, with Orbán claiming that the opposition would abolish this limit.

Government subsidies have also driven a vast boom in solar energy, which last year overtook fossil gas to become the country’s second-largest generation source aside from nuclear power. Only a decade earlier, solar barely contributed at all.

That, too, helps drive down the cost of energy — as electricity prices in Europe are determined by the most expensive fuel, usually gas or coal.

Overall electricity prices are lowest in EU countries like Spain, where renewables dominate.

In the runup to the vote, Orbán has doubled down on his resistance to an EU-level push to end imports of Russian fossil fuels following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, warning that an opposition victory would drive up power prices. Vance on Tuesday backed him up.

He said: “What’s going on in Hungary right now is that while, yes, energy prices are elevated, they’re far less elevated than they are almost anywhere else in Europe, and that’s because of the leadership of the man who’s standing next to me, and I think that leadership can provide a model to the continent.”

Yet without the price cap, bills would be significantly higher in Hungary — electricity prices for non-household consumers, such as industry, are among the highest in the 27-country bloc. Budapest’s policies have also not shielded its citizens from high fuel costs due to the Iran war, with the government recently intervening to cap prices at the pump for drivers.

In contrast, Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil, flowing through a single pipeline called Druzhba, has left the country’s energy supply highly vulnerable to disruption.

The Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Ukraine, was damaged in a Russian strike earlier this year. Orbán has accused Kyiv of deliberately slow-walking the repairs, and is holding up a multi-billion euro EU loan for Ukraine over the dispute. His government also opposes the EU’s effort to phase out its remaining imports of Russian fossil fuels.

Nevertheless, Vance — standing beside Orbán on Tuesday — insisted: “The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried make Hungary less energy-independent. They’ve tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they’ve done it all because they hate this guy.”

Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.