The European Union (EU) is trying to force Hungary to agree to a plan to phase out oil imports from Russia, according to The Washington Post. According to the publication, after almost a month of debate, the EU failed to reach an agreement on oil, largely due to the position of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“Hungary has no access to the sea and remains heavily dependent on Russian pipeline oil. Orban said the embargo would be like a ‘nuclear bomb’ that would hit its country’s economy,” the article reads.
EU officials fear Orb .n will use the situation to gain “excessive concessions” from Brussels. One possible option for sanctions is to impose an embargo only on Russian oil supplies while maintaining pipeline supplies.
Earlier, Budapest offered the EU an embargo on offshore oil supplies from Russia to replace onshore so that the economies of the association countries could function normally. This was announced by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Schiarto.
He said this should be done because “they make up the largest share of Russian oil supplies to Europe and the pipeline supply is a minority.”
Source: rambler
