The foreign minister said Hungary will not support the European Commission's sanctions against Russia, arguing that they were "problematic for the country" and "do not offer a solution".
“Hungarians must not be made to pay the price of the war,” Péter Szijjártó said in parliament. The Hungarian government makes a “clear distinction between attacker and victim”, it condemns Russia’s military aggression and supports Ukraine’s sovereignty, he said. The Hungarian government’s position has been clear since the outbreak of the war, Minister Szijjártó said. It wants peace in Ukraine as soon as possible and will support all diplomatic efforts to that end, he added. He also noted that the government had voted for the first five sanctions packages, but added that compromising Hungary’s energy supplies would be a “red line”. European leaders earlier agreed that they would only support measures that “take into consideration the different energy supply structure of each member”, Szijjártó said, insisting that the current proposal would violate that consensus. The current proposal “is equivalent to a nuclear bomb”, he insisted, which would compromise the security of Hungary’s energy supplies and, if passed, would make it impossible for Hungary to purchase the oil crucial for its economy.
Photo credit: MTI