Budapest will keep fighting EU’s Russian energy ban – Orban
The EU’s push to give up on Russian energy is “absurd” and Budapest will continue to resist it, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said.
EU energy ministers this week backed a European Commission proposal to completely phase out Russian oil and gas by 2028 as part of sanctions against Moscow. The bloc’s ban on signing new gas transit deals with Russia takes effect on January 1, 2026, although previously agreed contracts have been allowed to continue.
Hungary, which unlike most other EU members maintains a neutral stance on the Ukraine conflict and continues to purchase Russian energy, faces pressure from Brussels to fall in line with the rest of the bloc, Orban said in an interview with Kossuth Radio on Friday.
Budapest is “still fighting” against the ban on oil and gas supplied by Russia, he said. “This battle is not lost yet. Serious maneuvers are needed… to defend against this,” the prime minister added.
Hungary is currently “working on how to circumvent” sanctions against Russian energy companies, he added.
Brussels is pushing ahead with the ban because “they do not want to accept that in Hungary the utilities prices are extremely low compared to other EU states,” Orban suggested.
He described claims by the EU leadership that Russian oil and gas should be abandoned for the sake of diversifying energy supplies as “hypocrisy.”
“Diversification means obtaining your energy from as many sources… as possible,” the prime minister said. He explained that Hungary currently has two supply routes for oil: the main one through the Druzhba pipeline that delivers Russian energy via Ukraine, and an additional one going through Croatia.
“If you stop supplies via Ukraine, then two routes become one. What kind of diversification is that?” Orban asked.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that the EU faces “a drop in industrial output, rising prices due to more expensive American oil and gas, and a decline in the competitiveness of European goods and the economy as a whole” due to refusing Russian energy.
