VIENNA, May 6. /TASS/. European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia's energy sector are a red line for Hungary, the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Kossuth radio station on Friday.
"I was ready to agree with the first five packages of [EU] sanctions, but I made it clear from the beginning that there is a red line: the energy sector," he said, stressing that Budapest would not support a ban on Russian energy supplies.
"[The sanctions are] an atomic bomb they want to drop on the Hungarian economy," Orban added, pointing out that each country has the sovereign right to determine its energy balance.
He also stated that the sanctions already imposed by the European Union are more detrimental to the European economy than to the Russian economy.
According to diplomatic sources and the European media, the European Commission proposed that the EU countries refuse to import crude oil from Russia in six months and refuse to import petroleum products in 2023. Different terms of refusal from tanker and pipeline oil are also expected. Hungary opposes the restrictions on Russian energy imports. Slovakia also talks about the damage to the country in the case of refusal of oil from Russia. However, both states, as well as Austria, according to sources of the German public broadcaster ZDF, have withdrawn their veto on the oil embargo.