Ukraine has banned the use of its territory for the transit of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Because of this, the countries initiated this consultation procedure of the arbitration court with the European Commission.
This was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary Peter Szijjártó after the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels.
As Kyiv tightened sanctions, Russian “Lukoil” stopped supplying oil to Hungary and Slovakia. Although both countries are exempt from EU sanctions on the transportation of oil from the Russian Federation, the new Ukrainian sanctions nullified their immunity from restrictions.
Hungary received 70% of its oil imports from Russia, and half from “Lukoil”. This company supplies Hungary with two million tons of crude oil every year.
Peter Szijjártó said that this is "an unacceptable step on the part of Ukraine, which wants to become a member of the EU", saying that it endangers the supply of crude oil to two EU countries. And he added that this allegedly violates the Association Agreement with the EU.
The Hungarian minister called this decision of Ukraine "unfriendly", considering that Kyiv receives electricity from Hungary.
Peter Szijjártó then said that "Ukraine has not harmed the Russian economy, but the EU economy," and that the European strategy for Ukraine over the past two and a half years "has suffered a serious failure."
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Hungary has not provided any military aid to Ukraine, periodically blocks the allocation of EU funds to it, opposes sanctions against Russia, sees "danger" in Ukraineʼs accession to the EU and NATO, and also wants to cooperate with Russia, in particular in the field of nuclear energy. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban repeatedly called Ukraine for peace with Russia, called Ukraine a "no manʼs land" and "financially non-existent".
When Hungary began to preside over the EU Council in early July 2024, Orban went on a "peace tour": he asked Zelensky for a ceasefire, met with Putin and visited China. After that, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary Péter Szijártó called on "pro-war politicians to fasten their seat belts." The leadership of the European Union criticized Viktor Orban for the fact that he did not coordinate his visits to Russia and China, and therefore could not represent the EUʼs position there.
At the same time, Orban was praised for these visits by his Slovak colleague, the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico. He said he would like to join him in Moscow if his health permitted. Fico became prime minister in October 2023 from the pro-Russian “Smer” party and immediately after that announced that the government would not provide military aid to Ukraine. Fico wrote a column for the media where he called the Westʼs strategy regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war a "failure" and declared his desire to normalize relations with Russia. Later, in an interview with RTVS, Fico stated that "the only way to stop Russiaʼs war against Ukraine is to give part of Ukraineʼs territory to the invaders."