After a meeting with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sees progress in the stalled EU negotiations on further sanctions against Russia.
“The conversation with Prime Minister Viktor Orban tonight was helpful,” the German politician wrote on Twitter on Monday evening. “We’ve made progress, but more work is needed.” It’s also about regional cooperation for a better infrastructure for oil deliveries. According to her spokesman, von den Leyen traveled to Hungary in the afternoon.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had previously announced that he would block a decision on the planned import ban. Negotiations on the EU’s next package of sanctions have been stuck for days, as Hungary and other countries are demanding extensive exemptions from the planned oil embargo.
The topic of the talks in Hungary is the security of European energy supply, wrote the spokesman for the Commission President. Last week, the EU Commission proposed giving Hungary and Slovakia until the end of 2024 and the Czech Republic until mid-2024 to fully implement the oil import ban.
All other countries should halt oil shipments in six months and stop purchasing oil products such as diesel and kerosene in eight months. However, the compromise did not go far enough for Hungary in particular.
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“This Brussels proposal amounts to a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Hungarian economy,” Szijjarto said on Monday. The sanctions package means “only problems” for Hungary and does not provide any solutions for how the country, which is dependent on Russian oil, can replace the missing imports.
Slovakia and Bulgaria, which is calling for its own exemption, have also expressed concerns, among others. In order for the sanctions package to be implemented, all countries must agree.
Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are heavily dependent on Russian oil, all of which is supplied via the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. According to the national statistics authority, the Czech Republic covered around half of its oil consumption from Russian sources in 2021.
In Hungary, according to the government, 65 percent come from Russia. According to the national operating company Transpetrol, Russia is the only source of oil for Slovakia. According to the EU Commission, deliveries to these countries only account for a very small proportion of total EU imports of Russian oil. (dpa)
