Officials of the European Commission have not yet considered calls from official Budapest to influence Ukraine on the issue of unblocking supplies of Russian oil from Lukoil to Hungary. At the same time, the Hungarians were joined by Slovakia, which also condemned the de facto cessation of oil transit from the Russian Federation to European countries.
Journalists point out that the European Commission is probably intentionally delaying consideration of Hungary’s requests, even those related to the EU’s trade policy, with a request to at least start consultations with Ukraine. Thus, European Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Financial Times that Brussels “will need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation.”
During this time, a meeting of trade representatives of the member states of 11 countries took place, and none of them took the side of Budapest and Bratislava, three unnamed diplomats said. One of them even noted that the trade agreement with Ukraine contains security clauses that allow disruption of Russian energy supplies to other countries.
Journalist Vitaly Portnikov expressed the opinion that Budapest was facing the danger of an energy crisis due to numerous blocks of aid to Ukraine and the attempts of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to promote the “settlement” of the military conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
