Hungary again veiledly opposes European sanctions on Russian gas.
Hungary does not want to support new sanctions against the Russian Federation
The country's leadership is again trying to confuse the EU's monolithic position on anti-Russian sanctions.
Politico reported this.
According to several sources, Hungary expressed serious doubts about the new sanctions proposal during initial talks with ambassadors. It refused to oppose the measure outright but showed its wariness. The chief ambassador of Hungary said that Budapest would block any sanctions that increase the cost of energy carriers in Europe.
We are going to analyze the package of measures, but we do not support anything that could have a negative impact on the EU gas market, a Hungarian official told a meeting of diplomats on Wednesday, according to two diplomats familiar with the discussions.
Sanctions will prohibit EU countries from re-exporting Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), which could deprive Moscow of significant profits. But they will not stop the EU's purchases of Russian gas and will not deal a direct blow to Hungary's business interests.
However, Hungary is heavily dependent on Russian exports and has long opposed further energy sanctions against Moscow, which require the unanimous support of all 27 EU countries.
According to people who attended, several other countries, including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, also requested more technical details on the measures during the first talks. But Hungary hesitated the most.
European sanctions against the Russian Federation: what is known
EU countries may introduce restrictions on the export of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). Such a measure is contained in the 14th package of sanctions, which the European Commission sent to the EU states for consideration.
A complete ban on the import of Russian LNG to the European Union is not planned yet.
The approval of all the EU countries' leaders is necessary to adopt the decision.
At the same time, the European Union believes that the adoption of sanctions against the Russian LNG will be without problems.
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