Hungary has demanded that shipments of Russian oil via pipelines should be exempted from the EU’s proposed ban, as Budapest continues to resist the current round of sanctions.
Péter Szijjártó, the country’s foreign minister, said the embargo should be limited to seaborne shipments, excluding the pipeline that the landlocked country relies on to obtain flows of oil from Russia.
Hungary has been the main opponent of the plan, which requires the unanimous consent of the bloc’s 27 member states. It was unveiled by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen a week ago as she seeks to strip Russia of one of its main sources of hard currency income amid the war in Ukraine.
Budapest argues that a full embargo would place an unfair burden on countries that import Russian crude oil, which requires a different, more complex and expensive technology to refine, a process that is incompatible with the Brent type used mainly by western nations.
The country’s foreign minister said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the only realistic way of putting Russian oil under embargo would be to exempt the pipeline shipments altogether.
“Imposing an oil embargo is only realistic if it only applies to seaborne transit routes,” Szijjártó said in a Facebook video posted on Wednesday. “It is only realistic . . . if pipeline oil receives a full exemption.”
The statement amounts to a hardening of the Hungarian position as Budapest has demanded that Brussels takes into account the country’s geographical and technological constraints as well as the reverberations that a sudden shift away from Russian crude would cause to the Hungarian economy.
Szijjártó said the commission had not put any proposals forward that would tackle the “nuclear bomb-like effect” of a potential oil embargo on the Hungarian economy. “We will represent this view at talks this week whenever the proposal for the oil embargo is discussed,” he said.
Budapest is being pressured by European leaders to agree to the sixth package of penalties against Russia. Von der Leyen visited Budapest on Monday to hold talks with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán over the terms of any Hungarian participation in the sanctions package.
The meeting ended without an agreement on sanctions, but the commission declared there had been some progress. Plans for a conference call the following day with France and several eastern European countries that rely on Russian oil were delayed, however, given the difficulties of haggling over the details of any deal.
Hungary is seeking EU funding to help pay for the investment in infrastructure that will be needed to wean itself off Russian oil. It has also demanded a transition period of up to five years before any oil ban comes into effect, although Wednesday’s statement by the foreign minister suggests Budapest is now seeking to keep oil flowing indefinitely via the pipeline from Russia.
A further complication is that Hungary would, if it severed itself from Russia, become reliant on another pipeline from Croatia. Budapest wants to ensure it secures favourable terms from Zagreb for those shipments.
Meanwhile, other countries, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, have sought a longer timeframe to make the transition away from Russian oil.
EU ambassadors last discussed the sixth sanctions package on Sunday but were unable to reach an agreement. Diplomats are meeting again in Brussels, but some warned they were not expecting a deal on Wednesday.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said on Friday last week that he might hand the sanctions package to foreign affairs ministers if ambassadors were unable to reach a consensus. The EU’s next Foreign Affairs Council meeting is due to take place on May 16.
