EU’s Russian oil ban allegedly aborted!Hungary still opposes some countries’ request for UK and US participation
Author: Wall Street News Li Dan
According to the media, the core problem of the EU abandoning the ban is that there is no consensus within the G7; some EU countries believe that the embargo should involve other non-EU countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Hungary’s minister said Hungary would not support until solutions to issues such as energy security were given.
The latest round of blockbuster EU sanctions against Russia could end up with little thunder and little rain, as the main one has so far failed to come to fruition.
On Monday, May 9, Eastern Time, the Financial Times, citing people familiar with the matter, said that the European Union dropped its proposal to embargo Russian oil after difficult lobbying by Malta and Greece, the shipping powerhouse that accounts for more than half of the EU’s total shipping capacity. Some member states said in recent talks that an effective embargo should involve countries outside the EU, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, especially given the potential U.S. influence over countries where many cargo ships fly the flag, such as Liberia, the Marshall Islands and Panama.
The media pointed out that the core problem of the EU’s abandonment of the ban is that the G7 has not reached an agreement on the embargo. At the same time, the media pointed out that although European Commission President von der Leyen visited Hungary in person on Monday and met with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, Hungary still failed to support the EU’s ban proposal.
According to CCTV, the theme of the meeting between Von der Leyen and Orban on Monday was the latest EU sanctions against Russia and their impact on the Hungarian economy. “We have made progress, but further work is needed,” Von der Leyen said after the meeting.
After the meeting, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economy Sialto also said that the meeting had made some progress, but pointed out that the sanctions plan will bring huge problems to Hungary, undermine the country’s energy security, and will prevent the country from obtaining the necessary energy for economic operation. oil. He said:
“Hungary cannot support a package of sanctions until the European Commission provides solutions to these issues.”
This means that the EU’s plan to ban Russian oil was stillborn less than a week after it was announced.
Last Wednesday, the European Commission announced the draft of the sixth round of sanctions against Russia. It plans to gradually stop the import of crude oil from Russia within 6 months and by the end of this year, give Hungary and Slovenia a longer grace period, and completely ban them before the end of next year. The oil embargo, if unanimously approved by EU member states, would be the EU’s toughest sanctions to date against Russia’s energy industry. But Hungary said immediately afterward that the proposal would not guarantee its own energy security and might still not support a ban.
On Friday, Borrell, the EU’s top foreign affairs official and high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said EU negotiators were “almost” on the verge of agreeing on new sanctions against Russia, including an embargo on Russian oil. According to the media, the EU proposed to extend the grace period for Hungary and Slovenia to the end of 2024, and the Czech Republic will also get a grace period until June 2024. The Hungarian Prime Minister said that it would take four to five years to transform the domestic energy system for the country’s oil to “break out of Russia”.
The observers quoted Russian media sources last week as saying that when representatives of EU member states met last Friday to discuss the new sanctions plan, some member states were dissent. Among them, the countries with the strongest reactions were Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta and Cyprus. Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic are largely at odds over the EU timetable for enforcing the embargo, while Greece, Malta and Cyprus have concerns over the use of their flag vessels to transfer Rosneft.
Reuters reported that the EU meeting on Friday offered to help Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to upgrade their oil infrastructure, but did not reach an agreement; in order to address the concerns of Greece, Malta and Cyprus about their shipping companies, EU shipping companies are banned from shipping Russia. Before oil, the EU plans to extend the transition period from an initial one-month period to three months.
Bloomberg News reported over the weekend that a meeting of representatives of the 27 EU member states that ended on Sunday ended without a result. The grace period given by the EU failed to persuade Hungary to change its attitude. On Sunday, it was still opposed to the embargo proposal. Therefore, the EU’s new sanctions against Russia may be delayed. The EU’s oil ban on Russia may be released after the G7 summit agrees on similar measures. .
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