While the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that the Druzhba pipeline, damaged in Ukraine by a Russian strike, could be operational within “a month to a month-and-a-half”, tensions with Hungary are not easing. On Friday 6 March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reiterated his threats for Ukraine to act swiftly to resume deliveries of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia (see EUROPE 13817/10).
“We will stop things passing through Hungary, things that are important to Ukraine, until we receive Ukraine’s approval for oil deliveries”, Mr Orbán said on the radio, in comments relayed byAFP.
The country is still blocking an EU loan of €90 billion to Ukraine and the adoption of the 20th package of sanctions against Russia.
A spokesman for the European Commission, Olof Gill, explained that the institution was assessing the options for supporting the recovery of oil supplies, including “possible financial support”.
Without revealing more about the extent of the damage, Mr Gill maintained that the Commission “knows what’s going on” and was trying to “move this forward”.
In a letter sent on 4 March, Inese Vaidere (EPP, Latvian) and Ville Niinistö (Greens/EFA, Finnish), the European Parliament’s co-rapporteurs on the ‘REPowerEU’ regulation to phase out Russian gas, called on the Commission to remain in line with the objective of phasing out imports of Russian fossil fuels.
They said they hoped that the institution will not put pressure “directly or indirectly” on Ukraine.
“It would be morally and ethically unacceptable to expect a country that is the victim of Russia’s brutal war of aggression to maintain or restore a transit route that helps finance the aggressor’s war machine”, they wrote.
They therefore believe that the solution to Hungary’s stalemate must be found through political dialogue and, if necessary, “through the institutional instruments available within the EU”.
Mr Gill maintained that the EU’s priority remained to disburse the loan agreed by the European Council, “a commitment we expect all EU leaders to honour”.
“Rhetorical escalation on all sides is neither helpful nor conducive to achieving the objectives I have just mentioned”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)