Macron and Orbán explore by phone the options to unblock the sanctions against Russia
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, held a telephone conversation on Tuesday that is part of the European efforts to unblock the sixth package of sanctions against Russia, in particular due to the doubts that it arouses in Budapest the veto to Russian oil. A spokesman for Orbán, Bertalan Havasi, has confirmed to the Bloomberg news agency that, together with Macron, “they have discussed issues related to European energy security”, hours after the surprise visit to Budapest by the President of the Commission European, Ursula Von der Leyen. The Hungarian Prime Minister has defended in the last week that the oil embargo would be an “atomic bomb” against his country’s ability to obtain energy and has even threatened to veto the measure. After Monday’s meeting between Orbán and von der Leyen, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto nonetheless acknowledged “some progress.”