EU officials are renewing efforts to agree to an oil embargo on Russia on Monday, after a difficult weekend of talks ended in a stalemate and delayed a sixth round of European sanctions against Moscow.
The 27 EU ambassadors failed to reach an agreement on Sunday night, an official told reporters in Brussels, but talks continued on Monday ahead of an extraordinary meeting of European leaders later in the day.
The bloc has repeatedly struggled to get countries like Hungary to stand by when negotiating Russian sanctions, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has resisted for weeks the possibility of banning Russian oil imports.
“I think what I have seen in the room is that there is the will of all Member States to work with oil and to ban oil from European markets,” an EU official told reporters on Sunday.
“The question is, how to do it and how to address national specificities, as some Member States are more dependent on that than others.”
“If you focus on oil, you have certain countries that are 100% dependent on Russian oil, and phasing out is quite a challenge. So that’s what you need to fine-tune,” the official said.
“Difficult” negotiations: In a separate briefing, a senior EU diplomat told reporters that the technicalities of an oil embargo were “extremely difficult” to resolve. And countries like Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were still looking for guarantees on security of supply issues.
The EU senior diplomat also explained that given the complexity of the oil sector in Europe, the EU must “be very careful in drafting legislation and conclusions” in order to preserve a level playing field. EU internal market.
The diplomat expected the issue of oil and the sixth round of sanctions to be addressed by leaders at the extraordinary meeting of the European Council (EUCO) on Monday, but did not think the heads of state and government could solve technical problems.
“I think we are now in the last stretch of trying to do that,” they added.
Where is Hungary: Although Orban has finally accepted previous rounds of EU sanctions against Russia, he has repeatedly said he would not support a ban on Russian oil and gas.
“While we condemn Russia’s armed offensive and also condemn the war, we will not allow Hungarian families to pay the price of the war, so sanctions should not be extended to the oil and gas areas.” , said Orban. in a statement following bilateral talks in London with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March.
This position was a focal point in Orban’s campaign for re-election, which he said in a poll in April. Hungary is heavily dependent on Russian energy, and Orban has refused to condemn Putin’s invasion as clearly as most of his colleagues on the continent.
But there is growing frustration in Europe with its position.
“There are intense talks going on” over an oil embargo in Russia, German Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck told CNN on Friday. But “the question is whether Viktor Orban, Hungary, [is] willing to remain in the solidarity of Europe and the transatlantic partnership, and right now it doesn’t look like that. “