Hungary won’t support the European Union’s current plan to completely ban Russian crude oil as it undermines the eastern EU member state’s energy security, its foreign minister said.
Nothing short of an exemption for crude oil supplied via pipelines would get Hungary on board with the sanctions package, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said. He said the current EU plan would “obliterate” Hungary’s energy security.
“We can’t responsibly support this version of the Brussels sanctions package, we can’t responsibly vote for it,” Szijjarto said in a Facebook video. “Hungary can only support these sanctions measures if crude oil carried in pipelines is exempted from the restrictions.”
Under the EU proposal, Hungary and Slovakia, which are heavily reliant on Russian energy, would be given until the end of 2023 to comply with sanctions, a year later than other member states, according to people familiar with the matter. Slovakia on Wednesday asked for a three-year exemption.
The EU’s 27 member states will meet soon to discuss – and potentially vote on — the proposal. The bloc needs the support of every member state to approve the sanctions.
The European Union has proposed a revision to its Russia oil sanctions ban that would grant Hungary and Slovakia an extra year to comply beyond what they had already been offered, giving them until the end of 2024, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Czech Republic would separately be granted an exemption until June 2024, the people said. All other member states would phase out their imports by the end of this year as originally proposed, with imports of crude halting in six months and refined petroleum products in eight months.
