Budapest [Hungary], May 3: The Hungarian government does not support the oil and gas embargo against Russia, a senior official said on Monday.
"The Hungarian position on the oil and gas embargo has not changed: we do not support it!" Zoltan Kovacs, secretary of state for international communications and relations wrote on his Facebook page.
Kovacs reacted to a report made by German public television channel ZDF, according to which following a change of position in Germany, all European Union (EU) member states were now willing to support the EU's suspension of Russian oil imports as part of a new crackdown on Russia due to its conflict with Ukraine.
Besides Germany, Austria and Hungary were the most strongly opposed to halting Russian oil purchases, as their economies are heavily dependent on Russian oil supplies.
"The most important thing is for the European Union not to adopt a sanction that will make it impossible to import Russian oil and gas," Gergely Gulyas, head of the prime minister's office, told Hungary's main public radio channel MR1 on Sunday.
Otherwise, Hungary would have to procure these raw materials at a much higher price, without which the price caps on household utilities and the functioning of the Hungarian economy itself cannot be ensured, he added.
"We must not adopt sanctions with which we primarily penalize ourselves instead of those we want to sanction," Gulyas said.
Source: Xinhua