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Russian oil: Hungary asks the EU for help against Ukraine

by AI | 23.Jul 2024 | Europe in brief AI

The Hungarian government has asked the EU authorities to intervene with Kiev to restore certain deliveries of Russian oil transiting through Ukrainian territory.

A gas station of the Russian energy multinational Lukoil, photographed on August 29, 2022, in the 11th district of Budapest, Hungary. (Photo: Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP)

Budapest – Hungary, accusing neighboring Ukraine of hindering the transit of Russian oil through its territory, particularly destined for Budapest, asked the EU on Monday to intervene, alongside Slovakia, which is also affected.

This landlocked Central European country, with no access to the sea, benefits from an exemption from the European oil embargo decreed after the launch of the offensive by Moscow and continues to receive Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline, which also supplies the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 

But for several weeks now, Kiev has been blocking deliveries from the giant Lukoil, which supplies “a third of Hungary’s oil imports,” said Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto following a meeting with his counterparts in Brussels.

Together with Slovakia, Hungary has therefore “requested the initiation of consultations” by the European Commission within three days to put an end to what Budapest and Bratislava call a “violation of the EU-Ukraine association agreement”. (22.07.2024)