Hungary knew about Russian intentions with MOL

http://www.portfolio.hu/en/cikkek.td...

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 09:00:00 AM

Contrary to its earlier statement, Hungary's government was indeed aware of a Russian intention to buy shares of local fuels group MOL, but there was no way to obstruct the deal between Surgutneftegas and Austria's OMV, Chairman of the National Security Committee in Parliament claims.

“What could be done was done and MOL retained its independence," said Károly Tóth, Socialist Deputy Chairman of the National Security Committee. He noted that it would have been a real problem if the state and the secret service had not learned about such deal beforehand, local newswire MTI reported.

István Simicskó, Chairman of the committee, said after a meeting of the body on Tuesday that the secret services had notified the cabinet of an imminent transaction with MOL shares a few days before it actually took place and OMV sold its 21.2% stake in its Hungarian rival to Russia's Surgut for EUR 1.4 bn. There were no steps made to thwart the deal, he added.

Tóth said committee members agreed that MOL's independence must be preserved and in order to do so the government should even amend the relevant laws if necessary. There was an agreement that the company's independence had been defended (from OMV) by a co-operation between MOL and the government the last time.

Ádám Ficsor, minister without portfolio in charge of secret services, said there was evidence presented at the closed meeting that showed there was no way to prevent the transaction from happening.

Ficsor said Simicskó lied when he claimed the government had known about Surgut preparing to buy MOL shares and that the deal could have been obstructed.

It needs to be made clear that the government and the opposition wants the same in this case, namely to retain the independence of the national oil company. There is no room for party politics here, he stressed.

According to Russian analysts, Surgut acted on cue from the Kremlin. Surgut is one of the least transparent companies in Russia. The CEO of the oil concern is Vladimir Bogdanov who has been on friendly terms with the Kremlin and he had been holding executive positions on the Surgut oil fields since 1983.