The European Union’s long-delayed deal to embargo Russian oil, which was finalized late Monday, effectively exempts Hungary from the costly step the rest of the bloc is taking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
While Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has expressed his weeks-long opposition to the deal as purely about protecting his country’s economy, it was also the latest step in a decade-long turn of Hungarian leadership toward closer alignment. with Russia, sometimes at the expense of relations with its fellow members of the European Union and NATO.
The turnaround came despite deep-seated suspicion in Hungary of Russian power and influence, based on the history of Russian and Soviet forces brutally cracking down on Hungarian uprisings in 1848-49 and in 1956.
Mr Orban, an openly illiberal leader who was an outspoken critic of Moscow earlier in his career, has spoken with increasing admiration of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, and his kind of nationalism, and expressed his sympathy for the security demands of Mr Putin to NATO. He has also portrayed Hungarian interests as differentiating from the West by fueling culture wars and the fear of liberal values rippling at Hungary’s borders, speaking in March of “the gender madness sweeping the Western world”.
Under Monday’s deal, EU countries agreed to block imports of Russian oil by sea, leaving Hungary’s supply intact as it is locked in and receives its oil by pipeline. The agreement also includes assurances that, should the pipeline — it runs through Ukraine — be damaged, Hungary could purchase Russian oil in other ways without being accused of violating the European blockade.
“Hungary is exempt from the oil embargo!” Mr Orban stated on his Facebook page on Monday. He had previously said that stopping Russian oil “is an atomic bomb being dropped on the Hungarian economy”.
Hungary accounts for only a small part of the flow of Russian oil to the EU; the embargo will deprive Russia of billions of dollars in revenue, regardless of Hungary’s continued imports.
On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, when other allies sounded the alarm over Russia’s troop build-up near the border, Mr Orban traveled to Moscow to strike another deal for cheap Russian natural gas that has helped him keep energy prices low. to maintain home and political support.
Since the start of the war, Hungary has followed a thin line in joining the first rounds of sanctions against Russia and taking in Ukrainian refugees, while refusing to allow weapons destined to Ukraine to pass through the country or to accept additional US troops. Mr Orban won re-election for the fourth consecutive term in April, despite criticism that he befriended Mr Putin, who publicly congratulated him on his victory.
Hungary is more dependent on Russian energy than other European countries and receives about 80 percent of its gas from the Russian state-owned company Gazprom and more than half of its oil from Russia. Russia has also invested heavily in expanding a nuclear power plant in the country, which generates about half of its electricity.