BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The EU Commission is approaching Eastern European countries in the struggle for an oil embargo against Russia.
Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia should be given longer grace periods before imports are stopped, an EU diplomat told Reuters news agency on Friday. Hungary and Slovakia should be able to obtain Russian oil by the end of 2024. For the Czech Republic, the deadline should be mid-2024, unless a new pipeline via southern Europe is completed earlier. In principle, the derogations should only apply to pipeline oil. In addition, there should be help for new oil supply systems. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala spoke of a step in the right direction. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that if there was no agreement between the states on the embargo at the weekend, he would convene a special meeting of foreign ministers next week.
On Wednesday, the Commission decided on a sixth package of sanctions, including an embargo. According to this, all crude oil imports should be stopped in six months and all processed oil products should also no longer be imported by the end of the year. According to EU circles, Hungary and Slovakia should get an exception until the end of 2023. Nevertheless, the regulations have drawn criticism from several Eastern European countries that are particularly dependent on Russian oil,
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban rejected the entire package, which also includes sanctions against banks and those suspected of being responsible for war crimes. His country cannot support it in its current form, he told state radio. The EU Commission’s proposals are tantamount to dropping an atomic bomb on the Hungarian economy. However, Hungary is ready to negotiate if there is a new proposal that corresponds to Hungarian interests. In the EU, Hungary is the country with the closest ties to Russia.
Slovakia and the Czech Republic had also requested a three-year transitional period for oil imports. Bulgaria has also pushed for exceptions. In EU circles it was said that they did not have sufficient justification for this. An extension of the deadlines until 2024 would, however, go some way towards helping the federal states on this point.
GERMANY BECOME AN EMBARGO SUPPORTER
There has been an intense struggle for an oil embargo for weeks. According to expert estimates, the EU countries have transferred about 20 billion euros for oil to Russia since the beginning of the war. After initial skepticism, Germany gave up its resistance and supported the embargo plans. The background is that dependency on Russian imports has fallen faster than expected from the 35 percent it used to have. According to Economics Minister Robert Habeck, it is currently still about twelve percent, which is mainly attributable to the Schwedt refinery on the Oder, which is controlled by the Russian Rosneft group. The owners are looking for a new construction here in order to then switch over the oil deliveries for Schwedt.
Habeck had classified the transition periods for Germany as long enough to find alternative deliveries. Still, there could be problems, he said, referring to East Germany. “Of course we can’t guarantee in the situation that things won’t slow down, especially regionally.” The prices could also tend to rise, but one can only speculate here.