Shortly before the start of the special EU summit on Monday, there are signs of agreement on a graduated oil embargo. According to a draft of the summit declaration, oil deliveries via pipelines are initially to be excluded from the embargo. According to the draft made available to the AFP news agency, the sixth package of sanctions against Russia in the Ukraine war should be decided and implemented as quickly as possible. However, Hungary continued to brake. According to EU diplomats, Hungary could now give up its opposition to the embargo plans. The ambassadors of the member countries had been negotiating the oil embargo until shortly before the start of the meeting in the afternoon.
Orban demands guarantees
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called for guarantees that a compromise would be approved in the afternoon. Although the approach of excluding oil deliveries via pipelines is “good”, Hungary needs guarantees in the event that the pipeline is blocked, Orban said in Brussels. He accused the EU Commission of “irresponsible behavior”. “First we need solutions, then sanctions.”
In addition to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic had also expressed objections to the planned embargo. All three countries are mainly supplied with Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline.
Video: ORF correspondent Robert Zikmund reports from the EU summit in Brussels
Embargo comes in stages?
According to a diplomat, there is an agreement in principle on an embargo. Accordingly, this should take effect in two steps: initially only for ship deliveries and at a later date also for pipeline oil. “But it is premature to set a date now,” the diplomat said. The specific needs of individual countries must be addressed.
Another EU diplomat was more reserved. It is unclear whether Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban will agree to the present compromise. The question of the supply of oil via the northern part of the Druzhba pipeline, through which Austria, Poland and Germany obtain the raw material, is also open.
Scholz confident
Before the summit, Germany and Poland reaffirmed their intention to impose an import ban on Russian oil by the end of the year. This also applies if the EU allows exceptions to the planned oil embargo with a view to Hungary and other countries, according to diplomatic circles in Brussels. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was confident that the oil embargo would come about: “Everything I hear sounds as if there could be a consensus,” he said. “And sooner or later there will be.” Everyone worked constructively and with the will to come to an agreement.
Sanctions against Putin confidants
The planned new package of sanctions against Moscow, the sixth since the Ukraine war began in late February, also includes sanctions against other figures close to the Kremlin, including the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, and former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who has close ties be said to President Vladimir Putin. The exclusion of three Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial system, including Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, is also on the table.
Oil embargo without Hungary?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was to be connected via video conference at the beginning of the summit. An at least basic agreement on the sanctions package was therefore considered important.
On Monday before the start of the summit (4:00 p.m.), EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed his confidence that an agreement on an oil embargo against Russia is possible. There were tough talks on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, Borrell tells France Info. An agreement could be reached by the afternoon. If no agreement can be reached, the entire sanctions package could also be postponed.
Nehammer in Brussels
The chairman of the conservative EPP group in the EU Parliament, Manfred Weber, therefore called on Monday for an oil embargo if necessary without Hungary. “If Hungary is not ready to give up the blockade, it must be possible to leave the slowest behind so that the rest of the EU can go ahead,” Weber told the RTL and ntv channels. Orban must not “dance around on the nose” of the EU. Sanctions would have to be decided unanimously by the 27 EU countries. Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) will represent Austria at the summit.
Source: Nachrichten
