Planned EU embargo on Russian oil: Hungary openly threatens to veto - "nuclear bomb for our economy"

Created: 05/09/2022, 17:11

By: Thomas Schmidtutz

Hungarian Parliament: The EU member wants to veto an embargo on Russian oil.

© Robert Michael/dpa

In the dispute over an EU embargo on Russian oil, Hungary is relentless.

Now the next stress test is imminent.

Brussels – The situation is coming to a head in the dispute over the planned EU embargo on Russian oil.

Hungary does not want to support the plans and will veto them.

"Hungary will not vote for this package because the Hungarian people must not pay the price for the war," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Parliament in Budapest on Monday.

In order for the sanctions package to be implemented, all countries must agree.

Negotiations to extend the EU embargo on Russian oil have been going on for a week now and no agreement has yet been reached.

The EU Commission recently proposed granting Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until the end of 2024 to fully implement the delivery stop.

However, the proposal did not go far enough for Hungary.

The other two countries also maintained their hesitant attitude.

The G7 countries, on the other hand, agreed at the weekend to stop imports of Russian oil. 

Szijjarto explained the negative attitude by saying that the EU sanctions package meant “only problems” for Hungary.

It does not have any solutions for how the country, which is dependent on Russian oil, can replace the missing imports.

"This Brussels proposal amounts to a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Hungarian economy," he said.

The right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban had already attempted the same comparison in a radio interview last Friday.