The National Times - Zelensky urges EU end 'quarrels', adopt oil sanctions on Russia

The 27-nation EU has spent weeks haggling over a proposed embargo on Russian oil but come up against stubborn resistance from Hungarian premier Viktor Orban.

Leaders meeting in Brussels were hoping to persuade Orban to accept a watered-down version of the ban that would keep the oil flowing by pipeline to a handful of countries, including Hungary.

Zelensky, in a video address, called on them to adopt "effective" sanctions against Russian oil to make the Kremlin pay the price for its war on Ukraine.

"All quarrels in Europe must end, internal disputes that only encourage Russia to put more and more pressure on you," Zelensky told the EU summit.

"It is time for you to be not separate, not fragments, but one whole."

Orban, often the odd man out in EU decision making, said a proposal only to stop oil deliveries to the EU by ship was a "good solution" as he arrived for the talks.

"It means that an atomic bomb won't be thrown on the Hungarian economy," he said.

But he warned that Budapest still needed a "guarantee" it could keep on receiving Russian oil by sea if anything happened to the pipeline crossing Ukraine.

Orban said "there is no agreement at all" yet.

He did not, however, threaten to veto the leaders' planned summit statement, arguing that it was the European Commission's job to fine-tune the sanctions package.

- 'Getting closer' -

A sixth wave of EU measures against Moscow was put on the table four weeks ago, but EU unity shown in implementing five earlier waves of unprecedented sanctions on Moscow appeared to have hit its limit.

The latest proposed compromise would exclude the Druzhba pipeline from the oil embargo and only impose sanctions on crude shipped to the EU by tanker vessel, which counts for two-thirds of Russian oil imports.

While French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that a long-sought-after deal was "getting closer", others doubted that.

"I don't think we'll reach an agreement today," Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said ahead of the summit.

"Of course, we're going to have discussions, but everybody needs to be on board," she said, adding that she did not expect a solution before another summit to be held in late June.

An EU official said the leaders would attempt to find a "political agreement" on the Russian oil ban, with exceptions for specific countries worked out "as soon as possible".

EU sanctions require the backing of all member states and ambassadors fell short of finalising a deal just hours before the start of the summit.

- 'Orban's antics' -

Landlocked Hungary imports 65 percent of its oil from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline and, along with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, has asked for an exception from the import ban.

Diplomats said a two-year delay to the embargo had been granted to the countries concerned, but that Budapest wanted at least four years and nearly 800 million euros ($860 million) in EU funding to adapt its refineries.

"There is quite a lot of sympathy for Hungary's oil supply issues, which are great, despite the antics by Orban," an EU diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Hungary's intransigence comes on the back of Orban's recent resounding re-election to a fourth term and some experts are sceptical about the official claims of alarm over a Russian oil ban.

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S.M.Riley--TNT