EU diplomats face Hungary’s threat to derail sanctions on Russia

Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels [AP Photo]

European Union diplomats scrambled yesterday to overcome Hungary’s veto threats as they seek to finalize new sanctions on Russia and a massive new loan for Ukraine.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers gathering in Brussels would likely not agree on the 20th package of sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet and energy revenues, which it hoped to pass ahead of the fourth anniversary today of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine — a war that has left perhaps 1.8 million dead, wounded or missing.

“I think there is not going to be progress regarding this today,” Kallas said before a regular meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers in Brussels where discussion of the 20th sanctions package was planned.

The meeting came after Hungary threatened to block the EU sanctions plans and to obstruct a 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine until Russian oil deliveries to Hungary resume.

Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since Jan. 27 after what Ukrainian officials say were Russian drone attacks that damaged the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude across Ukrainian territory and into Central Europe. That has led to rising tensions between Budapest and Kyiv.

“No one has the right to put our energy security at risk,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said as he sparred with journalists in Brussels ahead of the meeting.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán doubled down Monday on his unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was deliberately holding back shipments of Russian oil, and accused Kyiv of seeking to topple his government. He referred to the oil supply disruptions as a “Ukrainian oil blockade” led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We have given President Zelenskyy firm and proportionate responses,” Orbán wrote on social meda. “He, too, must understand: by attacking Hungary, he can only lose.”

For the sanctions to pass, the 27-nation bloc needs to reach a unanimous decision.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he believes the package of sanctions will ultimately be adopted.

“That is a certainty – but the question rather is when it will be adopted. And from that point of view, everyone must uphold their commitments,” Barrot said, without explicitly citing Hungary.

Hungary’s looming election hangs over

Facing a crucial election in less than two months, Orbán has launched an aggressive anti-Ukraine campaign and accused the opposition Tisza party, which leads in most polls, of conspiring with the EU and Ukraine to install what he called Monday a “pro-Ukraine government aligned with Brussels and Kyiv.”

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he believed Hungary’s surprise announcement Sunday could really be about Orbán’s fierce fight to hold onto power.

Orbán, the EU’s longest-serving leader, will face off in April against the greatest challenge to his power since he took office in 2010.

“I would have expected a much greater feeling of solidarity from Hungary for Ukraine,” Sikorski said in Brussels. “The ruling party managed to create a climate of hostility towards the victim of aggression. And then it is now trying to exploit that in the general election. It’s quite shocking.”

Nearly every country in Europe has significantly reduced or entirely ceased Russian energy imports since Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Yet Hungary and Slovakia, both EU and NATO members, have maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas, and received a temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil.

Raising the pressure on Russia

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he was “astonished by the Hungarian position.”

“I don’t think it is right if Hungary betrays its own fight for freedom and European sovereignty,” Wadephul told reporters in Brussels, alluding to Hungary’s role in the fall of communism in Europe in 1989. “So we will once again come to the Hungarians with our arguments, in Budapest but of course also here in Brussels, for them to reconsider their position.”

“The German position is very clear: we must now show strength, we must support Ukraine sustainably, and we must do exactly what we did last year too: continue to raise the pressure on Russia,” Wadephul said. He said he is sure the EU will agree on a 20th sanctions package eventually.

Also on the line is a major 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to Ukraine meant to help Kyiv meet its military and economic needs for the next two years. Hungary had agreed to the loan in December.

“We expect all member states to honor that political agreement in view of final adoption of the loan,” said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the European Commission.

“We must release that. We must find an agreement between the member states because Ukraine needs this money heavily,” said Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia, which today is celebrating the 108th anniversary independence from then-Soviet Russia in 1918.

The meeting is expected to go late into the evening, said Sweden’s foreign minister Maria Stenergard. “It is of utmost importance for Ukraine that we have these decisions made, and I think it’s a disgrace by those who stopped that,” she said. SAM McNEIL, BRUSSELS, MDT/AP