Magyar says Hungary ready to talk about INA and Mol with Croatia

Hungary is ready to negotiate with Croatia about the relationship between INA and Mol, and believes that the two countries can begin a new chapter, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said at the Bled Strategic Forum, according to the Zagreb-based newspaper Jutarnji List.

Magyar said he had held brief talks with Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, during which they agreed that the two countries' ministers of foreign affairs and economy would begin negotiations on the relationship between the Croatian oil company INA and Hungary’s Mol. “We are ready to negotiate. Naturally, everyone will seek to protect their own national interests, but that is normal. At the same time, we see this as an opportunity to open a new chapter in the relationship of the two countries.”

However, the Hungarian Prime Minister did not provide a clear answer to the question of whether Hungary is prepared to extradite Zsolt Hernádi, the chairman and CEO of MOL—who is subject to a European arrest warrant—to Croatia. In Magyar's view, he had already addressed this issue by stating that there is now an opportunity to open a new chapter in Hungarian-Croatian relations. “Both countries have their own homework to do. That is my answer,” he said.

Charges were first filed against Zsolt Hernádi in Croatia in 2013; according to the prosecutor’s office, between 2008 and 2009, the Mol chairman bribed former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader with 10 million euros in order to acquire INA, the Croatian oil company. Péter Magyar also received a question about Hernádi during the international press conference held right after his election victory. At that time, he said that the friendship between Croatia's INA and Mol was a long-standing one, and that it was no coincidence that the Hungarian authorities had not extradited Mol’s chairman and CEO.

The beginnings of the INA-Mol conflict date back to 2009, when Mol and the Croatian government signed an agreement which allowed MOL to operate the Croatian company's gas business. According to Mol, Croatia failed to fulfill its commitments, so the Hungarian company initiated arbitration proceedings in 2013, which it won in 2022. A U.S. federal court recently ruled in Mol’s favor once again: under the ruling, Croatia is required to pay Mol $286 million.