The European Commission was working on a new tariff proposal against Russian oil that subsidized the two countries while it remained in the single market through Hungary and Slovakia amid pressure from Donald Trump for a wholesale severing of energy links with Moscow.
These extra duties stimulate costs of materials for both nations and, therefore, create an urgency for the alternative supplier being found.
“We shall eventually present what we have in mind on this,” Olof Gill, the Commission’s deputy spokesperson, said on Wednesday. “It will be a separate initiative from the package 19 sanctions still under consideration.”
The EU, as a part of its large sanction regime following the invasion of the full scale of Ukraine, had in 2022 basically created a ban on Russian crude and refined petroleum products. The ban was lauded as a giant killing toward ending the bloc’s historical dependency on Moscow.
The countries were estimated to have about 100,000 barrels per day of Urals oil since that heavier type was what their refineries were designed to process.
The carve-out was supposed to be temporary but was never brought up for reconsideration.
But the spotlight has now been shone on it by Donald Trump. The American president actively called for European countries to immediately halt all purchases of Russian oil as a way of tightening the screws upon the Kremlin and ending the war in Ukraine.
“China and India are supporting the continuation of this war by continuing to purchase Russian oil – but even NATO countries have so far not severely curtailed any Russian energy,”Trump said in the UN General Assembly.
In New York, Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, told Trump that the block is keen on banning “the last bits of oil and gas” from Russia.
“President Trump is absolutely right. We’re on it. We have already massively reduced the gas supply from Russia. (We) completely got out of Russian coal and massively also reduced the oil supply, but there’s still some coming to the European continent,” von der Leyen replied to a question posed by a reporter in the room.
Hungary and Slovakia have been fiercely opposing the phase-out, warning it would jeopardize their energy security and hike their consumer prices and precipitate expensive lawsuits.
Yet the Trump pressure campaign has placed these two countries in an increasingly uncomfortable position and forced them to at least reckon with their dependence.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó stated gas and oil supply was a “purely physical question” dependent upon connections between the landlocked country and energy suppliers.
“We can’t ensure the safe supply [of energy products] for our country without Russian oil or gas sources,” Szijjártó said in his comments, while explaining that he “understood” the President’s approach.
“It can be nice to dream about buying oil and gas from somewhere [besides Russia] … but we can only buy from where we have infrastructure,” he added. “And if you look at the physical infrastructure, it’s obvious that without the Russian supplies, it is impossible to ensure the safe supply of the country.”
Whereas sanctions require the unanimity of all 27 member states, tariffs are brought into effect by qualified majority meaning individual vetoes will not apply.
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