EGN NEWS DESK
In a blistering assault on Brussels the day earlier than, Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár praised the Hungarian workaround, which will even assure the move of Russian crude to his personal nation.
“Russian oil will proceed to move to us, which is sweet information for Slovak motorists and your entire economic system,” he mentioned on Wednesday, thanking Budapest whereas claiming “the European Commission has not helped to discover a resolution or support the folks of Slovakia and Hungary.”
In his feedback to POLITICO, Gill hit again, arguing that Kyiv had all the time maintained “Lukoil is the one firm going through sanctions in Ukraine, and that merchants can proceed their operations inside Ukrainian territory.”
“If something, the assertion by the Slovakian minister yesterday solely confirms the Commission’s earlier evaluation — in different phrases, that Lukoil is just not the one Russian oil provider to Hungary and Slovakia,” Gill mentioned.
The two international locations are probably the most overtly against European Union sanctions on Moscow, and have deepened their vitality ties with Russia regardless of the conflict raging in Ukraine. As landlocked nations, they have been granted what was purported to be a short lived exemption to a bloc-wide ban on Russian oil arriving by way of pipeline whereas they supposedly appeared for alternate options.
In actuality, although, Hungary has really elevated oil imports by way of the Ukrainian pipeline by 50 p.c since 2021 and MOL has seen its earnings hit file ranges, paying increasingly taxes to Viktor Orbán’s authorities. Analysts and different EU member international locations accuse Budapest of successfully profiteering from the conflict by shopping for Russian crude on a budget.
