Hungary still has to “play its part” and decide whether it wants to show unity with the European Union by imposing sanctions on Russia as the bloc works on its sixth round of proposals, a senior EU diplomat said Friday.
At a press conference in Brussels for journalists, the diplomat said the proposed sixth round of sanctions would include an oil embargo with the aim of “making a lasting impact on Russia’s ability to make money and incur the high costs”.
The diplomat said the proposal still needs to be refined, as most European countries “have to move away from oil, and there are obviously realistic economic considerations to take into account and the availability of alternatives clearly differs from Member State to Member State.” member state.”
“So we have to somehow resolve these concerns,” the diplomat added.
The diplomat said they understood there is an “existential oil dependence on Russia as far as Hungary is concerned”.
“The committee is coming up with proposals, and at some point you have to bite the bullet, you know, and see where you want to be in this, and we hope Hungary will be more willing,” the diplomat said.
Hungary has been given “reasonable proposals”, the diplomat said, adding that the country will have to decide where it stands “so that we can continue to preserve this important EU unity and send the same signals to Russia that it must stop the war effort.” said the diplomat.
“Negotiations take place every day, even on weekends. So I don’t know where this will end,” the diplomat said.
On Wednesday, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Hungary will vote for EU sanctions on Russian oil only if the bloc comes up with solutions to problems it would start.
“We have made it clear to the European Commission that we can only vote in favor of this proposal if Brussels offers a solution to the problems that Brussels would cause,” Szijjártó said in a video posted on Facebook on Wednesday.
“We expect a solution that doesn’t just involve transforming our refineries that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, not just expanding the oil pipeline’s capacity. [that runs] through Croatia to Hungary, which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but also with regard to the future of the Hungarian economy, since, as I said before, this current proposal is like an ‘atomic bomb’ for the Hungarian economy,” continued Szijjártó.
Niamh Kennedy and Boglarka Kosztolanyi of DailyExpertNews in London and Mayumi Maruyama in Tokyo previously contributed to this post.
