On Thursday 26 February, the European Commission released the minutes of an ad hoc meeting of the Oil Coordination Group held the previous day, seeking to reassure the public about energy security following the interruption of supplies on the Druzhba pipeline (see EUROPE 13815/1).
According to the European Commission, it is this very incident, caused by Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, that stands at the heart of a new controversy surrounding the blocking by Hungary and Slovakia of the 20th sanctions package and the €90 billion loan to Ukraine (see EUROPE 13814/1).
Budapest and Bratislava have made their support conditional upon the repair of the pipeline through which they obtain their Russian gas supplies (see EUROPE 13810/19).
During the meeting, the Member States indicated that they did not anticipate any immediate risks to security of supply.
“Hungary and Slovakia have drawn from emergency oil stocks, which they hold in reserve (...)”, the Commission explained. The two countries would also have benefited from supplies of “non-Russian” crude oil through the Adriatic pipeline from Croatia.
Additional cargoes, chartered by the MOL group, are said to be on their way to the Croatian oil terminal at Omišalj to guarantee the security of oil supplies to the two landlocked countries.
In addition, a European Commission spokeswoman explained on Thursday that Croatia was in the process of assessing whether it could legally accept Russian crude oil in its port, given the EU and US sanctions.
Another supply option via the Odessa-Brody pipeline in Ukraine is also being evaluated as a “medium-term” solution. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)