Hungary refused to exchange Russian oil for supplies from other countries

The Hungarian government rejected Croatia's offer to use its pipeline as an alternative to importing oil from Russia. The European Union demands that Hungary and Slovakia find a replacement for oil from Russia as quickly as possible, but Budapest is not taking any steps for this.

On Wednesday, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic sent a letter to the European Commission (EC), reporting the “underutilization” of the oil pipeline that runs through the country, starting on the Adriatic coast. The oil import infrastructure exceeds Croatia's needs and could provide landlocked countries with enough crude that could "reduce or eliminate their dependence on Russian oil," according to the letter seen by the Financial Times.

Plenkovic's proposal met with a furious response from Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó. He wrote on Facebook that it was part of an attack on Budapest coordinated with the EC. Szijjártó accused Croatia of “not being a reliable transit country,” of raising transit fees to five times the market average since the start of the war in Ukraine, of not investing in capacity expansion, and of preventing MOL from entering into long-term contracts. Szijjártó concluded: Hungary, along with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, received permission from the EU to continue purchasing Russian oil, despite the embargo imposed in the union. They have not been able to quickly replace it with supplies from other sources, but they should do so in the coming years.