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EU Blasts Hungary's Threat on Sanctions02/23 06:07
European Union diplomats scrambled Monday to overcome Hungary's veto threats
as they seek to finalize new sanctions on Russia and a massive new loan for
Ukraine.
BRUSSELS (AP) -- European Union diplomats scrambled Monday to overcome
Hungary's veto threats as they seek to finalize new sanctions on Russia and a
massive new loan for Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc's 27 foreign ministers
gathering in Brussels would likely not agree on the 20th package of sanctions
targeting Russia's shadow fleet and energy revenues, which it hoped to pass
ahead of the fourth anniversary Tuesday of Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine
-- a war that has left perhaps 1.8 million dead, wounded or missing.
"I think there is not going to be progress regarding this today," Kallas
said before a regular meeting of the EU's foreign ministers in Brussels where
discussion of the 20th sanctions package was planned.
The meeting came after Hungary threatened to block the EU sanctions plans
and to obstruct a 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine until Russian oil deliveries
to Hungary resume.
Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since
Jan. 27 after what Ukrainian officials say were Russian drone attacks that
damaged the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude across Ukrainian
territory and into Central Europe. That has led to rising tensions between
Budapest and Kyiv.
"No one has the right to put our energy security at risk," Hungarian Foreign
Minister Pter Szijjrt said as he sparred with journalists in Brussels ahead
of the meeting.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn doubled down Monday on his
unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was deliberately holding back shipments
of Russian oil, and accused Kyiv of seeking to topple his government. He
referred to the oil supply disruptions as a "Ukrainian oil blockade" led by
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"We have given President Zelenskyy firm and proportionate responses," Orbn
wrote on social meda. "He, too, must understand: by attacking Hungary, he can
only lose."
For the sanctions to pass, the 27-nation bloc needs to reach a unanimous
decision.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Nol Barrot said he believes the package of
sanctions will ultimately be adopted.
"That is a certainty -- but the question rather is when it will be adopted.
And from that point of view, everyone must uphold their commitments," Barrot
said, without explicitly citing Hungary.
Hungary's looming election hangs over EU talks
Facing a crucial election in less than two months, Orbn has launched an
aggressive anti-Ukraine campaign and accused the opposition Tisza party, which
leads in most polls, of conspiring with the EU and Ukraine to install what he
called Monday a "pro-Ukraine government aligned with Brussels and Kyiv."
Poland's Foreign Minister Radosaw Sikorski said he believed Hungary's
surprise announcement Sunday could really be about Orbn's fierce fight to hold
onto power.
Orbn, the EU's longest-serving leader, will face off in April against the
greatest challenge to his power since he took office in 2010.
"I would have expected a much greater feeling of solidarity from Hungary for
Ukraine," Sikorski said in Brussels. "The ruling party managed to create a
climate of hostility towards the victim of aggression. And then it is now
trying to exploit that in the general election. It's quite shocking."
Nearly every country in Europe has significantly reduced or entirely ceased
Russian energy imports since Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine on
Feb. 24, 2022. Yet Hungary and Slovakia, both EU and NATO members, have
maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas, and received a
temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil.
Raising the pressure on Russia
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he was "astonished by the
Hungarian position."
"I don't think it is right if Hungary betrays its own fight for freedom and
European sovereignty," Wadephul told reporters in Brussels, alluding to
Hungary's role in the fall of communism in Europe in 1989. "So we will once
again come to the Hungarians with our arguments, in Budapest but of course also
here in Brussels, for them to reconsider their position."
"The German position is very clear: we must now show strength, we must
support Ukraine sustainably, and we must do exactly what we did last year too:
continue to raise the pressure on Russia," Wadephul said. He said he is sure
the EU will agree on a 20th sanctions package eventually.
Also on the line is a major 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to
Ukraine meant to help Kyiv meet its military and economic needs for the next
two years. Hungary had agreed to the loan in December.
"We expect all member states to honor that political agreement in view of
final adoption of the loan," said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the
European Commission.
"We must release that. We must find an agreement between the member states
because Ukraine needs this money heavily," said Margus Tsahkna, the foreign
minister of Estonia, which on Tuesday is celebrating the 108th anniversary
independence from then-Soviet Russia in 1918.
The meeting is expected to go late into the evening, said Sweden's foreign
minister Maria Stenergard. "It is of utmost importance for Ukraine that we have
these decisions made, and I think it's a disgrace by those who stopped that,"
she said.
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