Hungary was seen as the main resistance to EU attempts to end Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
Budapest, which depends on pipeline deliveries from Russia, has blocked the sixth package of sanctions because it cannot easily get oil from elsewhere.
“It would be humiliating … to completely remove part of the package from the oil embargo just to boost the other elements,” an EU official said.
“So the idea is to have a embargo on Russian oil and exempt the Russian Druzhba gas pipeline that supplies Hungary only for a while, to give the European Commission and Hungary time to solve the problem.”
Since most Russian oil in Europe is delivered by tanker ships, a ban on imports by sea would still have a significant impact.
But the lack of an agreement on the oil embargo has hampered the implementation of other elements of the sanctions package, such as the disconnection of Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, the Swift messaging system and a ban on broadcasters. Russians of the EU.
In his nightly speech, Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, attacked EU divisions over the latest package of sanctions.
He said: “How many more weeks will the European Union try to agree on a sixth package? Of course, I am grateful to those friends who advocate new sanctions. But where do the people who block this sixth package get their power from? Why are they allowed to have that power? “
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, asked further questions about how Germany was prepared to show its support for Ukraine on Friday in a tweet that read: “Can violence be fought with violence? Can you only create peace without weapons?
“It simply came to our notice then. We support Ukraine so that violence does not become the norm. “