Hungary has shifted from opposing a new EU sanctions package targeting Russia to calling on its fellow EU member-states to lift all restrictions on Moscow’s fossil-fuel industry, the Associated Press reported Monday.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a social-media video cited by the news agency that he’d sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling on the EU to “review and suspend all sanctions on Russian energy across Europe” amid a spike in oil prices caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Under the national party led by Orban, Hungary’s opposition to Russia sanctions is not new. Along with Slovakia, Hungary previously obtained an exemption from EU bans on importing Russian oil since the launch of Moscow’s war on Ukraine and both countries have until recently bought Russian crude sent through the Druzhba pipeline, the AP said.
Those oil deliveries ceased in late January when Ukraine claimed that a Russian drone strike had damaged the pipeline, according to the report.
In February, Hungary became the sole holdout to the passage of a new EU sanctions package targeting Russia, citing Ukraine’s failure to reopen the pipeline as the reason for its opposition to the restrictions and a separate £90 billion for Kyiv.
Tensions escalated further on Thursday when Hungarian authorities arrested seven Ukrainian bank workers who were transporting £60 million in cash and 9kg in gold in cash-transport vehicles destined for Ukraine, the BBC said.
Ukraine’s state savings bank, Oschadbank, described the shipment as a regular transport between the governments of Austria and Ukraine, and said the interdiction was unjustifiable. Hungarian officials, by contrast, accused the Ukrainians of laundering money, according to the BBC.
The seven Ukrainians were released on Friday but Hungary retained the money and gold, according to the report.
On Monday, officials in Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party proposed a measure that would allow Hungarian authorities to keep the seized Ukrainian cash and gold, Reuters reported. The proposal could be approved by Hungarian lawmakers as early as Tuesday, the news agency said.
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