Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó said today that the European Commission's decision (EC) not to mediate in the dispute over blocked Russian fuel supplies through Ukraine, creates assumptions that Brussels is behind their suspension, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Hungary and neighboring Slovakia have been protesting since Kiev imposed sanctions on Russian oil giant Lukoil in June, halting oil deliveries through Ukraine to refineries in the two Central European countries.
Scijarto's statement, which he made without providing any evidence, comes a day after the EC rejected a request by Budapest and Bratislava to mediate between them and Kyiv over the sanctions.
„The fact that the EC announced its reluctance to help secure energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia suggests that the order was sent from Brussels to Kiev to cause challenges and problems for energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia,” said Sijarto at a conservative political festival.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the European Commission said there were no signs that Ukraine sanctions would threaten European energy security, as Russian oil continued to flow through the “Druzhba” pipeline, which also connects Hungary and Slovakia to Ukraine.
The EC and the Ukrainian government have not commented on the Hungarian statement.
Scijarto made a similar comment last month after accusing the European Commission of blackmail over the oil dispute and saying that maybe “Brussels, not Kiev, made this all up”. Then the EC again did not respond directly, but said it was collecting information about the situation.
Slovakia and Hungary, both EU members, oppose Western military aid to Ukraine, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion since 2022.
The “Druzhba“ oil pipeline continues to operate even as the EU tries to become more independent of Russian energy sources.
The southern route of the pipeline passes through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and has been a primary supplier to their refineries for years.
On Thursday, a Hungarian government official said that the Hungarian oil company “MOL“ (MOL - Magyar OLaj - "Hungarian Oil" - note ed. ) is in the final stages of discussions to create a scheme to guarantee crude oil flows from Russia.