EU embargo
Hungary wants to continue buying Russian oil
Hungary only wants to support the oil embargo if it does not affect Hungary, according to Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. Photo: -/Russian Foreign Ministry /dpa
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The EU Commission would like to impose an oil embargo on Russia. But this requires the approval of all EU countries. Hungary will only agree if they are exempted.
Hungary is demanding a comprehensive exemption from the planned EU sanctions against Russian oil imports. “The Hungarian government will support the oil embargo if it doesn’t affect us,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on his Facebook page.
For example, the proposed sanctions would be acceptable to Hungary if all oil supplies coming from Russia via pipelines are exempted, he added.
Negotiations on the oil embargo are ongoing
In negotiations that have been going on for a week now, EU countries have not yet reached an agreement on an oil embargo against Russia. The EU Commission has proposed ending imports of Russian crude oil in six months because of the Ukraine war. As a compromise, the Commission proposes giving Hungary and Slovakia until the end of 2024 and the Czech Republic until mid-2024 to fully implement the oil import ban.
The proposal does not go far enough for the government in Budapest. The Danube region gets 65 percent of its oil requirements from Russia. This amount only comes into the country via pipelines. Switching to non-Russian oil would be too expensive, Szijjarto said in the video.
Alternatively, Hungary wants to be “fully compensated”.
Should the sanctions package come on the table without the exemption requested by Hungary for deliveries via pipelines, Budapest would only agree if the EU compensated Hungary “in full”, the foreign minister said. In this case, the conversion and adjustment costs would amount to “several billion euros”. In order for the sanctions package to be adopted, all EU countries must agree.