BRATISLAVA, March 28. /TASS/. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has threatened to block new EU sanctions against Russia because Ukraine has not resumed oil pumping through the Druzhba pipeline.
"If the European Commission is going to give preference to Ukraine over Slovakia, it may forget about the support of the 20th package of sanctions against Russia or our willingness to meet halfway when [implementing plans] for Ukraine's rapid accession to the European Union," the prime minister said in a video message on Facebook (banned in Russia).
Ukraine says that Druzhba was allegedly damaged, but it does not allow European experts to inspect the pipeline.
"We are registering statements by the Ukrainian president that he is absolutely not interested in restoring the transit of Russian oil. After stopping the transit of Russian gas, we are talking about Vladimir Zelensky's second openly hostile and economically damaging step towards Slovakia. The EC has done nothing to force Zelensky [to fix the pipeline situation]," Fico said.
According to him, if oil supplies through Druzhba had continued, Slovakia and the Central European region would not have faced a difficult situation with gasoline, whose prices are rising amid the Middle East crisis.
“The EC expects us to allow gasoline and diesel fuel prices [in Slovakia] to rise above two euros per liter. I have absolutely no doubt that it also pursues political goals — this means weakening the current government coalition, which dares to have many sovereign [views and take an independent] position on fundamental issues. The EC would be much more pleased [if the republic] had a government composed of the [liberal] opposition. It would have fulfilled all the EC wishes and maybe would have driven Slovakia into war,” the prime minister said.
The current cabinet, according to him, will continue to implement a sovereign policy and will defend the national interests of Slovakia.