logo
Hungary claims it exposed 2 Ukrainian 'spies' amid mutual espionage accusations

Hungary claims it exposed 2 Ukrainian 'spies' amid mutual espionage accusations

Yahoo20-05-2025

Hungarian intelligence services have uncovered two alleged Ukrainian "spies," Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote on the social media platform X on May 20.
The new allegations escalate a diplomatic row sparked by mutual espionage accusations between Kyiv and Budapest.
Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) claimed on May 9 that it had exposed a Hungarian espionage network in western Ukraine, detaining two agents. In response, Hungary expelled two Ukrainian diplomats, a move met with reciprocal expulsions by Kyiv.
Kovacs said that Hungary's Fidesz party identified the individuals as Roland Tseber and Istvan Hollo.
Citing the parliamentary group leader Mate Kocsis, he claimed Tseber was "an illegal officer of Ukrainian intelligence" who built ties with opposition figures to influence Hungary's position on Russia's war.
Kocsis also claimed Hollo was a Ukrainian national under investigation for seeking classified Hungarian information on energy and military policy.
"This activity fits a classic influence operation aiming to discredit Hungary internationally and pressure the government to shift its Ukraine policy," Kocsis said.
Ukraine hasn't commented on the latest allegations.
Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support Us
On May 13, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused Ukraine of meddling in Hungary's internal affairs and colluding with an opposition party.
"The Hungarian opposition party took an active part in the special operation of the Ukrainian secret service. Such a thing has never happened in our memory," Orban said, likely referring to the Tisza party led by opposition figure Peter Magyar.
Magyar, who visited Kyiv in July 2024 and raised humanitarian aid for Ukraine, has positioned his party in opposition to Orban's policies and vowed to reset Hungary's relations with the West.
Orban, widely regarded as the EU's most pro-Russian leader, has repeatedly opposed military aid for Ukraine and warned that Ukraine's EU membership would "destroy" Hungary.
The espionage dispute comes amid Hungary's increasing political isolation within the EU due to its position on Russia's ongoing full-scale war, now in its third year.
Read also: 'No one saw surrender as an option' – Mariupol defender on historic Azovstal fight and brutal Russian captivity
We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Face the reality Trump: Negotiating with the likes of Putin is essentially making a deal with the devil
Face the reality Trump: Negotiating with the likes of Putin is essentially making a deal with the devil

New York Post

time26 minutes ago

  • New York Post

Face the reality Trump: Negotiating with the likes of Putin is essentially making a deal with the devil

There's realpolitik. And then there's reality TV politik. There's foreign policy realism, of the kind associated with Henry Kissinger. And then there's Donald Trump's twist: real estate-ism. Anyone trying to assess the foreign policy of this White House needs to appreciate these distinctions. The various individuals responsible for national security in the Trump administration are united in their rejection of both the liberal idealism that informed the speeches (if not the actions) of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the neoconservative version of idealism that inspired George W. Bush's Global War on Terror. Yet there is much more to Trump 2.0 than the hard-nosed realism of Richard Nixon — a key influence on Trump. No previous president has livestreamed his Oval Office meetings with foreign leaders. That week in February when Trump hosted — and, to varying degrees, humiliated — the French president, the British prime minister, and the Ukrainian president introduced to great-power politics the unmistakable style of 'The Apprentice,' the TV show that made Trump a household name. As Trump acknowledged, his and Vice President JD Vance's shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, was 'great television.' Real-estate politics At the same time, the negotiations that he and his golfing friend Steve Witkoff are conducting in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East draw on an earlier chapter in Trump's career. As Witkoff explained to The Atlantic, he and Trump see diplomacy as functionally indistinguishable from doing real-estate deals. 'Diplomacy is negotiation,' Witkoff told Isaac Stanley-Becker. 'I've been doing it my whole life.' It is not difficult to ridicule the way Trump and Witkoff have approached the task of ending Russia's war against Ukraine, a task Trump insisted on the campaign trail that he could achieve within 24 hours. Witkoff's sycophantic interactions with President Vladimir Putin, a cold-blooded practitioner of realpolitik, have been painful to watch. His account of these interactions in an interview with Tucker Carlson was risible. The fact that the war has significantly escalated since Trump's peace initiative began — with Russian airstrikes reaching new peaks and Ukraine countering Sunday with an audacious drone attack on Russian strategic bomber bases — speaks for itself. 4 President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, July 7, 2017. AP Yes, Trump inherited a truly terrible strategic position from Joe Biden and his foreign policy team, who substituted 'de-escalation' for deterrence and watched as America's enemies inflicted harm on its friends in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel. A formidable Axis of Authoritarians emerged under the Biden presidency, uniting China, Iran, and North Korea in support of Russia's war. Even if the Original Sin of Biden's mental decline and its concealment did not impact foreign policy as much as domestic policy, he certainly was not equal to the task that confronted him. As Walter Russell Mead has rightly said: 'In 2023 and 2024 America needed a president who could explain . . . what we needed to do to stop the drift toward a new era of international confrontation. This is something Mr. Biden would have struggled with even if he were in full possession of his capacities; it was utterly beyond him in his diminished state.' Yet the failures of the recent past do not absolve us from asking if reality TV plus real estate adds up to a strategy. Liberals on both sides of the Atlantic lament that Trump is an imperialist who wants to carve up the world between the United States, Russia, and China. But it is hard to detect a coherent imperial project in the combination of territorial claims (on Canada, Greenland, and Panama), tariffs imposed as much on allies as on adversaries, and peace initiatives in Eastern Europe and the Middle East that are sometimes hard to distinguish from business deals. Distrust of top brass Trump is sometimes called an isolationist. I have never found this convincing. But I think it is true that, compared with almost every other president in the past century, he is deeply reluctant to use military force. This is partly out of a genuine horror of getting embroiled in one of those 'forever wars' that have haunted Americans from Vietnam to Afghanistan. But it is also because Trump learned in his first term not to trust the top brass of the US armed forces. He will never forgive Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for his communications with his Chinese counterpart in the run-up to the 2020 election and his condemnation of the subsequent Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol. The odd thing is that Trump's preference for peace over war does not truly reflect the sentiment of the electorate. Gallup polling shows that Americans today are quite strongly hostile to China and Russia (more so than to Iran or North Korea). According to a March 2025 poll, 46% of voters think the United States is not doing enough to help Ukraine in its war with Russia, up from 30% in December. While Democrats have soured on Israel, as a new Chicago Council survey reveals, around three-quarters of Republicans favor US military support for Israel not only 'until the hostages are returned' but also 'until Hamas is dismantled or destroyed.' And more than two-fifths (42%) of Republicans said last year that, in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, they would support 'using the US Navy to break a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, even if this might trigger a direct conflict between the United States and China.' 4 In this photo provided by Ukraine's 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense press service, soldiers fire toward Russian army positions near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday, June 2, 2025. AP A reluctant prez On all these issues, Trump is much less belligerent than his own base. He is strongly disinclined to continue US aid to Ukraine. He is so keen to resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal that he now seems willing to allow Iran to carry on with low-level uranium enrichment. And we know from John Bolton's memoir, 'The Room Where It Happened,' that Trump would be very reluctant indeed to risk a war with China over Taiwan. This pacifism is one of the things that Trump's liberal critics seem unable to acknowledge. The notion that he is an imperialist or even a fascist flies in the face of the evidence that the man is a peacenik at heart. Put it this way: Fantasizing about wearing papal vestments is not the usual behavior of a bellicose autocrat. But making peace is historically harder than launching wars — or, for that matter, buying skyscrapers. Trump is learning this the painful way in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe. What kind of 'peace' does he envision in Ukraine? First, Ukraine will relinquish its claim to Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, along with all or most of Luhansk and Donetsk. Second, Ukraine will renounce the possibility of membership in NATO. Third, in place of a US military guarantee, Washington and Kyiv have signed an agreement that commits the United States to invest in Ukrainian natural resources. This might seem like a very sweet deal from Moscow's vantage point. It has certainly required major concessions by President Zelensky. And yet we seem no nearer to a cease-fire, much less a lasting peace, than we were on Inauguration Day more than four months ago. The reason is clear: Putin shows no sign of modifying his demands not only for territory but also to limit Ukraine's ability to arm and govern itself. Russia's goal is not just land; it is to render Ukraine defunct as an independent state. 4 President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky listen to Vice President JD Vance as they meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 28, 2025. AFP via Getty Images Despite his strong preference to blame Zelensky for the war and to woo Putin with the carrot of sanctions relief (and deals, deals, deals), Trump is being forced to admit that Putin is, in fact, the principal obstacle to peace. 'I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia,' the president declared on Truth Social on May 25, 'but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!' Unfortunately, the Russians must have read in the Financial Times about the TACO ('Trump Always Chickens Out') trade. The Russian response to Trump's threats was sarcastic. 'Trump's message leaves little room for misinterpretation,' Russian state media tweeted last Tuesday. 'Until he posts the opposite tomorrow morning.' When both FT and RT are laughing at you, something is wrong with your dealpolitik. South Korea or Vietnam The lesson of history is entirely clear: Wars are hard to stop — unless one side wins a decisive victory. With sustained Western support, Ukraine has a shot at being a version of South Korea. If America settles for an unsustainable peace, it will share the grim fate of South Vietnam. Neither outcome gets done quickly. It has often been argued that backing Ukraine was an extraordinary bargain for the United States. For a commitment of roughly $175 billion in assistance and Ukraine-related spending since the war began, Hal Brands has argued, the United States cleaned out stocks of aging weaponry, stimulated US production of 155 mm artillery shells, gave contracts worth $120 billion to US companies, and helped the Ukrainians kill around 200,000 Russian soldiers and destroy thousands of Russian tanks. Brands is right that, if the US had not acted when Putin invaded and the Ukrainians fought back, then eventually 'Ukraine would have fallen, allowing Moscow to create pervasive insecurity in Europe. Russia and China . . . would have had all the global momentum.' But the Biden administration at no point had a credible endgame. They failed to grasp that the longer the war dragged on, the more likely Russia was to grind down Ukraine — unless the West could somehow increase its military and financial support. Yet that was never politically plausible. On the contrary, it was predictable from the outset that Americans and Europeans would become 'fatigued' by the war — or perhaps just bored — if it dragged on for much more than a year. 4 Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of board of trustees of Talent and Success foundation at the Sirius Park of Science and Art after his phone talks with President Donald Trump on Monday, May 19, 2025. AP No incentive to stop The Trump solution seemed simple: End the war. But the reality is that unless the US and EU apply serious pressure to Russia, Putin has no incentive to end the war. Up until this point, the much-vaunted sanctions imposed on Russia by the West since February 2022 have been a case study in the limits of economic coercion. Russia has made more from selling energy to Europe in the last three years than Ukraine has received in aid from the EU. At the same time, European countries continue to export large quantities of goods to Russia via third countries, most of them in Central Asia. Four steps could be taken immediately to toughen the sanctions regime — and incentivize Putin to end the war. First, the US could follow Europe's lead in expanding sanctions on Russia's tanker fleet and the companies that provide services to these tankers. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Second, the US could impose tighter restrictions on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Third, the US could place additional large Russian firms on the Specially Designated Nationals blacklist, as the Biden administration did with Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas in January. (An obvious target could be Gazprom, though the European states that continue to buy Russian gas would strongly oppose such a move.) Fourth, the Trump administration could make good on its threats to impose 'secondary tariffs' on Russian oil imported by other countries. That could easily form part of the current US trade talks with India. David vs. Goliath These and other measures would inflict pain on a Russian war economy that is already showing clear signs of overextension. I hope the Trump administration is seriously considering at least some of these steps. But I see little sign that it is. Diplomacy turns out to be quite different from reality TV and real estate. The best diplomacy is conducted secretly, not on live TV. And when a national security strategy goes awry, bankruptcy is not an option. There is no Chapter 11 for a failed foreign policy. The fall of Kyiv is not an event anyone in Washington — or in Brussels — wants to contemplate. Those sympathetic to Ukraine want to believe that, with a combination of Western aid and Ukrainian ingenuity, David can get the better of Goliath. Those — not least Trump — who would rather do deals with Goliath want to believe that, with a little help from Steve Witkoff, Goliath can be persuaded to shake hands with David and call it quits. Neither of these views is realistic. If anything, the Trump view is the less realistic of the two. I could be wrong. Perhaps the administration will surprise me by belatedly applying serious economic pressure to Russia. But if Ukraine ultimately goes the way of South Vietnam, I doubt future historians will be flattering. Reprinted with permission from The Free Press.

Boulder suspect's daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation.
Boulder suspect's daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation.

USA Today

time40 minutes ago

  • USA Today

Boulder suspect's daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation.

Boulder suspect's daughter dreamed of studying medicine. Now she faces deportation. Habiba Soliman moved to the U.S. hoping to study medicine. Then her father Mohamed Soliman was charged with a hate crime in an attack aimed at peaceful Jewish demonstrators. Show Caption Hide Caption Who is Boulder, Colorado, terror suspect Mohamed Soliman? Authorities say 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman attacked a pro-Israel event in Boulder. Here's what to know about the Colorado suspect . She moved to the United States with a dream of studying medicine to transform lives. Then her father was charged with attempting to take them in connection with a fiery assault on pro-Jewish protesters in Boulder, Colorado. Now Habiba Soliman, daughter of Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, faces deportation along with the rest of her family. The family, originally from Egypt, moved to the U.S. from Kuwait. Habiba Soliman recently graduated from high school, but her aspirations were upended when her 45-year-old father was charged with a federal hate crime and 16 counts of attempted murder related to the attack that left a dozen people burned, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. Two remain hospitalized. Her life had been headed in a positive direction before the attack on the weekly demonstration in support of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, which came three days after her high school graduation. A federal affidavit says the elder Soliman told investigators he planned the attack for a year and waited for his daughter to graduate before carrying out the plot. Prior to the attack, Habiba Soliman had written about her hope of accomplishing great things in the U.S. 'Coming to the USA has fundamentally changed me,' she wrote in an application for a Colorado Springs Gazette 'Best and Brightest' scholarship. 'I learned to adapt to new things even if it was hard. I learned to work under pressure and improve rapidly in a very short amount of time. Most importantly, I came to appreciate that family is the unchanging support.' She won the scholarship and was profiled in the Colorado newspaper where she shared her dream of a "future medical career" in the U.S. Instead, the White House said on X on Tuesday that Mohamed Soliman's wife and five children 'could be deported by tonight.' FBI and police officials said Monday the family has cooperated with investigators. The family is in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and could not be reached for comment."This terrorist will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,'' Noem said on the X platform. "We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it.'' Why did she want to pursue medicine? Habiba Soliman's interest in medicine goes back to her father, according to a Colorado Springs Gazette profile celebrating her winning one of the outlet's "Best and Brightest" senior class scholarships. She told the outlet that she wanted to study medicine after seeing how her father regained the ability to walk after a difficult surgery. She described the result as 'magic.' Moving to the U.S. from Kuwait provided her new opportunities to pursue her dream. Her favorite activity was volunteering at a local hospital which would help in a 'future medical career,' she wrote in her scholarship application. Representatives at the hospital, UCHealth, did not immediately respond to requests for information on how long she volunteered or what her tasks were. 'Best and Brightest' Soliman was among 20 winners of the Best and Brightest scholarship, according to Christopher P. Reen, chair of the board of Gazette Charities. 'Recipients were selected through a highly competitive process that evaluated academic excellence, leadership, character, and a strong commitment to community service - her application and credentials met the program requirements,' Reen said to USA TODAY. 'However, outside of the program and the criteria, we cannot speak on behalf of specific scholars.' The scholarship affords winners a chance to have their academic excellence and future aspirations recognized in the local paper. Soliman was part of the 34th class of winners, according to the Gazette. Applicants need to have a minimum 2.5 GPA, display a commitment to community and have a vision for their future, according to the 2025 application. She was the only winner from her high school, the Thomas MacLaren School, an award-winning charter school founded in 2009. Nearly 950 students attend the Kindergarten through 12th grade school, according to the website. Overcoming challenges Among essay questions Best and Brightest applicants answer is a 'defining moment' prompt: 'What obstacle(s) have you faced and what did you learn from that experience?' Habiba Soliman wrote about how difficult it was to move to the U.S. from Kuwait. According to federal officials, Mohamed Soliman entered the United States in late 2022 on a tourist visa, and later requested asylum. It's unclear if they entered the country together. According to the Gazette, she at least joined MacLaren as a sophomore, a year which she described as a disaster where she had no friends as she struggled to learn English. Later she went on to start an Arabic club at the school and also made an effort to welcome new students, according to the Gazette. Madalyn Rilling, a MacLaren teacher who wrote a letter of recommendation for Soliman, said the immigrant student had quickly grown into a class leader through her thoughtful questions. '(Habiba's) English skills have improved to a fluent level and she has become an even more advanced student,' Rilling wrote. Rilling and other MacLaren representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Facing deportation The White House has taken to X to highlight the potential repercussions Mohamed Soliman's wife and five children potentially face for his actions. 'Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed's Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon,' the White House said in a post on the Elon Musk platform. The family is not the first connected to a suspected criminal to face deportation under the administration of President Donald Trump. Three Venezuelans tied to the man who killed 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley were also arrested and slated to be deported after Trump came into office in 2025. Jose Antonio Ibarra was convicted in 2024 of murdering Riley and sentenced to life in prison. His brothers Diego Jose and Argenis as well as his former roommate Rosbeli Flores-Bello were all imprisoned in 2024 for possessing false immigration documents. But shortly after coming into office, Trump's Department of Justice announced that they would be deported. Argenis Ibarra and Flores-Bello were immediately placed into Immigrations and Customs Enforcement custody following the March 19 announcement. Diego Ibarra is expected to be turned over to immigration officials following completion of a 48-month federal prison sentence. Contributing: Trevor Hughes, John Bacon and Jorge L. Ortiz.

Hydrogen's Chicken-and-Egg Problem Persists as Buyers Hesitate
Hydrogen's Chicken-and-Egg Problem Persists as Buyers Hesitate

Yahoo

time40 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Hydrogen's Chicken-and-Egg Problem Persists as Buyers Hesitate

The conversation about low-carbon hydrogen continued last week at the annual World Utilities Congress, hosted by the multinational energy and water company TAQA in Abu Dhabi. While the hoped-for future trade between Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remained in focus, a shift in emphasis appeared. While national goals look increasingly dubious, progress is occurring in specific industry sectors guided by international agreements. Meanwhile, MENA countries confront the imperative to develop domestic markets for their clean hydrogen. Looking for good news Industry observers strained to find good news during a discussion called 'Low carbon and green hydrogen: navigating challenges to open opportunities.' High cost, lack of demand and regulatory uncertainty were named as the main factors holding projects back. Even the world's premier project – NEOM Green Hydrogen in Saudi Arabia – is in danger of delays. TotalEnergies will buy 70,000 tons per year in a long-term contract, about one-third of planned production, but there are no other buyers yet according to a report by Bloomberg News last week. In Europe, with EU mandates and pipelines for hydrogen under development, there is ongoing criticism of the regulatory regime being shaped by the EU, which many participants believe is too onerous. Europe's incentive schemes and contract for difference programs are producing just a small part of the green fuels required to meet EU goals. And the outlook for hydrogen in the US remains precarious, where incentives may be revoked to offset tax cuts. Chicken and egg There's a basic 'chicken and egg' problem afflicting the nascent industry, in which there's no market without demand, and no demand without a market. 'We're trying to create a market out of essentially nothing, we're at very early stages,' said Frederik Beelitz, Head of Advisory for Central Europe, Aurora Energy Research. 'Bridging the gap between the levelized cost of hydrogen and the willingness to pay is currently the big challenge, mainly on the demand side,' he said. 'Potential offtakers for green or low-carbon hydrogen are just not willing to pay the relatively high cost that it now incurs.' Producers want long-term off-take agreements, but off-takers such as industrial companies and utilities want shorter agreements in anticipation of the cost of hydrogen falling as production ramps up and technology improves. "No one can commit to a 10-year price, no one can carry that risk,' said Jan Haizmann, CEO, Zero Emissions Traders Alliance. 'But we've seen how quickly renewables scaled and hydrogen might follow the same path if the conditions are right." In Europe, the chicken and egg problem is being met with push and pull policies. On the supply side, pull factors taking the levelized cost of hydrogen down include support mechanisms for capital cost and financing. On the demand side, push factors act to raise the capacity or willingness or buyers to pay. Auction devices such as Germany's H2Global, now going into its second auction round, provide critical price information while subsidizing the difference between suppliers' long-term prices and buyers' preference for short-term contracts. However, it's unclear whether these programs will build meaningful specific At last week's conference and other recent events, there's been less use of the term 'hydrogen industry' and more emphasis on industry sectors. Hydrogen and its derivatives are now seen as high value fuels for very specific applications. In Europe, the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) sets clear targets for the maritime and aviation sectors, in the form of the percentage of 'renewable fuels of non-biological origin' (RFNBO) that fuels must contain. This should create demand for derivatives and synthetic or e-fuels produced with hydrogen. Such fuels include ammonia and e-methanol in the maritime sector and e-kerosene in the aviation sector. In aviation, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) has entered Phase 1. Airlines can purchase carbon credits in the voluntary market, which must meet the high CORSIA standards, or they can purchase sustainable aviation fuel. The amount of emissions covered will expand greatly when Phase 2 starts in 2027 with the inclusion of Brazil, India, Russia and China in the scheme. In global shipping, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has issued draft rules mandating greenhouse gas emissions reductions for ships (5,000 gross tonnage or greater) and imposing penalties for non-compliance. These rules will effectively impose the first ever global carbon price for international shipping and create demand for green and low-carbon hydrogen derivatives and biofuels. They should compel shipowners and the fuel producers and bunkering companies supplying them to substitute renewable and low-carbon fuels, including expensive-to-produce e-methanol, in place of fossil-derived fuels. Demand for low-carbon hydrogen should also arise in the power sector, with more electrification of transport and industry and increasing demand for electricity produced from renewable energy systems. As the price of renewable power continues to decline, it will make hydrogen more competitive because much of its cost is based on electricity prices. Where seasonal power demand variations occur, it can play a critical role in seasonal storage. In fact, hydrogen production and storage could help utilities to hedge against low power prices in Europe, where renewable energy has exposed them to very low and even negative prices. Carrots and sticks for domestic markets For MENA countries, the prospects for large-scale green hydrogen exports look increasingly unlikely in the near future. Yet countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already invested a lot and risk stranded assets. The question is critical for Saudi Arabia, where the biggest electrolyser production in the world will launch at NEOM next year, and this hydrogen will need to find 100% offtake for 600 tonnes per day produced. 'To have it all go out on ships is very ambitious,' said Jan Haizmann. 'They will have to think about what to do with the remainder, as export opportunities may not be realized.' The countries are already large consumers of hydrogen in their refining and chemicals industries. They have green hydrogen targets in place and plan to develop domestic demand for green and blue (with carbon capture) hydrogen. "Countries in the region need to build their own internal markets with clear rules and binding targets that drive demand," said Haizmann. And he emphasized that they will likely need incentives to create demand. They will need 'carrots and sticks', including binding targets that compel companies to procure certain volumes of low carbon fuels for their operations or face penalties, because a purely voluntary system that mostly relies on export scenarios is unlikely to work. As an example, he pointed to the incentives that, over time, supported the rise of renewable energy systems in many regions. 'With every new technology, there is a need to incentivize it to get to high volumes, and when high volumes are achieved, then prices come down,' he said. 'The production opportunities for hydrogen in MENA are fantastic, almost unrivalled, because of the sunshine here,' he said. 'But it doesn't remove the need to do something to realize the opportunities.' By Alan Mammoser for More Top Reads From this article on Sign in to access your portfolio

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store