The EU executive is awaiting further details from Slovakia and Hungary about their oil supply situation before taking any further action in a dispute over Kyiv’s sanctions against Russian oil firm Lukoil, which has continued supplying the two countries via Ukraine through over two years of war.
The European Commission has said there was “no immediate risk” of oil shortages in Hungary or Slovakia, after the two countries complained about Ukraine’s decision last month to place sanctions on Russian supplier Lukoil, which transits exports to the two countries via the war-torn country.
While the EU as a whole has moved to diversify its oil and gas supplies away from Russia, the two eastern members have continued to receive oil via the Soviet-era Druzhba (friendship) pipeline, and Ukraine’s move prompted Budapest and Bratislava to demand intervention from the Commission.
“According to the information we have at our disposal…it appears that the sanctions imposed by Ukraine on Lukoil do not affect the ongoing oil transit operations via Druzhba carried out by trading companies, as long as Lukoil is not the former owner of the oil,” spokesperson Balazs Ujvari told reporters.
He referred to a meeting today between trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal where the matter was discussed in detail. “The commission services are waiting for a detailed reply from Slovakia and Hungary that would allow us to confirm that this is indeed the case,” Ujvari added.
According to a statement from the Ukrainian government, Shmyhal described the actions of the two EU member states as “highly politicised and manipulative”.
“We are convinced that the real threat to these countries comes from Russia, which is trying to avoid fair sanctions through energy blackmail,” Shmyhal said. “And we are grateful to the European Commission for its policy of limiting Russian energy resources and supporting EU countries that are actively diversifying their energy flows.”
The EU executive concluded that “urgent consultations do not appear to be warranted at this point in time” as its preliminary analysis suggested that missing volumes from Lukoil were replaced by different suppliers through the same pipeline.
Asked if this situation was likely to continue through the coming winter, a spokesperson told reporters: “We are not at the point of doing this kind of longer term analysis, we are looking at the immediate security of supply concerns, this is also what was raised specifically by the two countries.”
Only around 3% of Europe’s crude oil supplies now come from Russia, an official noted, adding that an alternative pipeline route through Croatia has sufficient spare capacity to meet the needs of both countries.
Slovakia and Hungary had written to the EU executive the previous week asking it to intervene in the context of the the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, signed a decade ago to deepen political and trade ties, and seen as an early step towards eventual EU membership.
Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szíjjártó said two days ago (30 July) that the lack of response from the EU executive up to that point indicated Brussels was either “so weak it is incapable” of defending the interests of two member states against a candidate country, or that the whole oil squeeze had been “invented” by the EU executive to “blackmail” two “pro-peace” countries who refuse to allow arms shipments to Ukraine.
A spokesperson told Euronews the Commission would not comment on the Hungarian minister’s assertions, which were originally posted on social media.
The spat comes at a time of increasing diplomatic tensions between Brussels and Budapest. After months of using its veto in the EU Council to delay sanctions against Russia and block EU aid to Ukraine, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán sparked outrage when he used the first weeks of his country’s turn as chair of intergovernmental talks to conduct a unilateral “peace mission” to Moscow and Beijing.
Szíjjártó warned in an interview on Hungarian television station ATV last week that until the issue of oil transit is settled, Hungary would continue to block €6.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility
