Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivers a speech during the EP’s extraordinary plenary session marking the fourth anniversary of the start of the war
The suspension of oil transit through Ukraine may be a “political maneuver” by Brussels and Kyiv aimed at preventing Viktor Orbán’s election victory, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, foreign policy advisor to Polish President Karol Nawrocki, said Tuesday in an interview with conservative radio station Radio Wnet. This opinion signals a 180 degree turn within the Polish President’s office, after last year’s unfortunate scandal caused by President Nawrocki’s unwillingness to meet Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after the Visegrad 4 meeting of heads of states in Esztergom. The reason quoted for this was Viktor Orbán’s energy export negotiations in Moscow.
In response to a question, he mentioned that due to protests from Hungary and Slovakia, no EU agreement had been reached on a new loan to Ukraine and the 20th package of EU sanctions against Russia, and Slovakia had announced that it would halt emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine.
In his response, Saryusz-Wolski pointed out that
Hungary and Slovakia had refused to approve the loan to Ukraine when, during the final stage of EU negotiations on the matter, Ukraine had stopped transiting crude oil to the two countries.
He noted that he would not rule out the possibility that the suspension of transit through Ukraine was the result of “an agreement between Brussels and Ukraine to harm Viktor Orbán in the final stages of his election campaign (parliamentary elections – editor’s note).”
He said it was possible that the damage to the Ukrainian pumping station was intentional and that it was a “political operation.”
The advisor also pointed out that there is “bilateral dependence” in energy matters, as it is not only a question of crude oil transit through Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary, but also of the two countries supplying electricity to Ukraine, for example.
“I would like the (Brussels-Ukrainian) ‘conspiracy theory’ to prove untrue, because if it is true, then Ukraine is shooting itself in the foot, and Budapest and Bratislava are right,” said the advisor. Hungary and Slovakia “consider the sudden suspension of transit, which is vital to them, to be malicious,” he stated. He believed that clarifying the facts in this case would certainly “take a long time.” However, the context of the parliamentary elections is “by no means coincidental,” Saryusz-Wolski concluded.
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Via MTI; Featured photo: EP/Daina LE LARDIC
The post Polish Presidential Advisor Believes Oil Transit Halt to Be Politically Motivated appeared first on Hungary Today.
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They cannot cut us off from Russian energy, force Ukraine’s EU accession, make us send money, or drag us into war.
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