In a video published on Facebook, Orbán stated that the situation with energy supplies in Europe is critical and a serious energy crisis is approaching. “This threat can only be prevented if the European Union replenishes its gas and oil reserves as quickly as possible and in the greatest possible quantity from all possible sources and from all possible directions,” Orbán let himself be heard.
According to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Brussels should also force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to immediately put the Druzhba oil pipeline into operation. The pipeline has been out of order since the Russian attack on January 27 of this year. Hungary and Slovakia have not received any oil through the Druzhba pipeline for over two months.
The Hungarian Prime Minister claims that the damage to the oil pipeline is not serious, and by stopping oil supplies, Ukraine wants to trigger an energy and political crisis before the elections in Hungary and influence the parliamentary elections held in the country on April 12.
Hungary has announced that it will stop gas supplies to Ukraine until the transit of oil through the Druzhba pipeline is restored.
Suicide boat
Fico confirmed the phone call with Orbán on Facebook and compared the European Union and the European Commission in matters of energy security to a suicide boat. “I am not calling for anything else, only for the return of common sense. Today’s phone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán confirmed that we cannot fight the huge energy crisis only at the national level,” stated Fico.
“Despite this, the governments of the Slovak Republic and Hungary are doing everything to protect the national economies and their citizens from the ideological blindness and incompetence of the EC, the malicious Ukrainian president and the effects of the war against Iran,” said the Slovak prime minister.
Fico called for the immediate resumption of dialogue with Russia and the provision of such a political and legal environment that individual member countries and the EU as a whole could supplement the missing gas and oil reserves from all possible sources. “Therefore, senseless sanctions prohibiting the import of gas and oil from Russia should be lifted, an independent EU initiative should be launched to quickly end the war in Ukraine, and vigorous steps should be taken to restore the operation of the Družba pipeline,” added the head of the Slovak government.
