Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, has said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on 7 November.

Source: Index, a Hungarian news website, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Gulyás said that Orbán is set to meet Trump at the White House on 7 November, one day earlier than unofficial media reports had earlier indicated.

He said that talks between the Hungarian and US sides have been ongoing for a long time on a range of issues and the purpose of the visit is to reach agreements on cooperation in the energy, defence, economic and financial fields.

Quote: "The meeting will give the two leaders an opportunity to exchange views on possible ways to achieve peace and to discuss a roadmap leading to a US-Russian meeting and, as a result, an end to the Russo-Ukrainian war."

More details: One of the contentious issues at the talks is likely to be Hungary's purchases of Russian energy, which Budapest does not want to give up.

Background:

• Trump said that Europe must fully abandon Russian oil and gas. Recently, he has imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia's largest oil companies, and their subsidiaries.
• Following those sanctions, Orbán said that his country is working on finding a way to bypass US sanctions imposed on Russian oil companies.
• The Hungarian government is trying to persuade the US administration that, as a landlocked country, Hungary has no choice but to rely on Russian oil. Hungarian officials claim that they cannot solve this problem even though there is an alternative oil pipeline linking Hungary to the Adriatic Sea via Croatia, which European capitals keep reminding them about.

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