The solution the European Council intends to choose – to extend the embargo onto oil arriving from Russia by sea, but not by pipelines – is acceptable for Hungary, PM Orban said on Monday, upon arriving in Brussels for the extraordinary two-day summit to be attended by leaders of EU member states.

Viktor Orban told journalists that Hungary would find such a solution acceptable since this would not involve „dropping a nuclear bomb” on the country’s economy, which could continue t o function as before.

He emphasized that

what is at stake during the talks is getting a guarantee that if something might happen to our oil supplies coming through the Russian pipeline, i.e. we receive no oil via the pipelines, then Hungary would have the right to procurement with seaborne delivery and to have it shipped in alternatively.

„This is the guarantee that we need. If I obtain such a guarantee we’re asking for today, then we’re safe,” the prime minister said.

Responding to a question, PM Orban said Hungary was prepared to back the EU’s sixth sanctions package if it received a guarantee regarding the security of Hungary’s energy supply.

“The current solution on the table is bad, Solutions should be arrived at before sanctions are agreed,”

he underlined.

The premier said western European oil companies were generally the ones making profits out of EU sanctions and hence were the “biggest winners” of the EU’s sanctions policy. Since Hungary must make costly investments such as building pipelines and upgrading oil refineries, the country would not reap any “extra profit”. He added that the product would end up costing Hungarians more than the current one. “We won’t let this happen,” he stressed.