New EU Sanctions Package Offers Reliefs, Says Foreign Minister

The latest EU sanctions package against Russia contains mostly relief for Hungary, both in terms of oil products, the operation of the Friendship pipeline and the maintenance of the Budapest metro, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in New York on Wednesday.

He reminded that despite the fact that the European Union’s sanctions against Russia have proved over the past three years that they are not working and are causing serious damage, the Polish presidency of the EU and the bureaucrats in Brussels, with the enthusiastic support of many member states, have adopted further punitive measures “in defiance of the new reality.”

“This sanctions package, however, contains some reliefs for Hungary. We have fought to ensure that the 16th sanctions package allows the use of Russian oil products imported by MOL and processed at Slovnaft’s Bratislava refinery in Hungary, thus greatly improving Hungary’s energy security,” he pointed out.

“We have also fought for the instruments needed for the maintenance of the Friendship oil pipeline to be exempted from the sanctions regime. Of particular importance are those needed to maintain and service the pipeline’s international metering station.

We have therefore ensured that the Friendship pipeline will continue to be physically operational for the transport of oil in the future, so we have taken another step towards improving our energy security,”

he continued. He also welcomed the fact that it has been possible to carry out the necessary works for the maintenance and warranty repair of the Budapest Metro Line 3.

FM Péter Szijjártó: Despite three years of failed sanctions that have caused significant damage, Brussels—now under @POLAND25EU and backed by pro-sanctions states—continues to push forward new measures, ignoring geopolitical realities. However, Hungary successfully negotiated… pic.twitter.com/yLQxcJWwqN

— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) February 19, 2025

“We have also prevented the sanctioning of twenty-seven individuals and organizations.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was to be sanctioned again, we prevented this because if we put church leaders on the sanction list, we lose the opportunity for the churches themselves to act for peace,”

Péter Szijjártó informed.

“We also prevented the Russian Olympic Committee and two Russian football teams from being put on the sanctions list, because it would have made a mockery of the whole mechanism of the European Union if it had been read in the far corners of the world that the European Union was sanctioning Russian football teams because of the war in Ukraine,” he added.

“However, the time for the sanctions policy is over, a new reality has emerged, because the US-Russia talks are going quite well and we sincerely hope that US-Russian relations will improve in the future so that this whole sanctions policy can be forgotten,” the Foreign Minister concluded.

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