The European Union should lift the ban on Russian oil supplies and return it to Europe amid the global shortage caused by the war in the Middle East. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto said this while speaking at a conference of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Budapest.
He noted that the situation around Iran has created the threat of the “most serious oil supply crisis in history“. At the same time, “Europe, where wrong political decisions were made, has found itself cut off from the most important Eurasian oil sources“, the foreign minister stressed. “Europe cut itself off from Russian oil through its political decision and was cut off from Arab oil because of the current "security situation and war" in the Middle East, Szijjártó specified.
According to him, “the question is whether Europe will maintain this situation for ideological reasons or whether it will open a source of oil that is within its power to discover for economic reasons.““We cannot control how the war in the Middle East will develop, but the European Union may decide to return Russian oil to the European market“, the minister stressed.
The Hungarian government is putting pressure on Ukraine to resume the transit of Russian oil through the “Družba“ pipeline, which has been suspended since January 27, and is insisting that the European Union put pressure on the Ukrainian authorities on this issue. In addition, Budapest is calling on Brussels to follow Washington's example and lift the ban on the transport of Russian oil by sea.