Budapest, Nov 14 (IANS) Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on Friday that his country will challenge the European Union’s plan to end Russian energy imports at the EU court.

Speaking on state radio, Orban accused the EU of attempting to sidestep his veto power over sanctions on Russian energy by using trade rules in its plan to end all imports of Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027 and called it a “fragrant violation of the European law.”

“We are turning to the European Court of Justice in this matter,” he said, Euro News reported.

“This is a flagrant violation of European law, the rule of law and European cooperation … They will pay a very high price for this,” Orban said.

Landlocked Hungary relies heavily on Russian energy and has requested exemptions and threatened to veto the bloc’s sanctions since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022.

During his visit to the US last week, Orban secured an exemption from US sanctions on two Russian energy firms after meeting President Donald Trump at White House.

“We asked the president to lift the sanctions. We agreed and the President decided, and he said that the sanctions will not be applied to these two pipelines,” he said.

Orban credited his close ties with Trump for securing the waiver and said that it would remain in place until he and the US President remain in office. He called Russian energy “vital” for Hungary and warned that cutting it off could cause economic collapse.

He said he was “also exploring other means of a non-legal nature” to avoid falling under the EU’s plan to end Russian energy imports, Euro News reported.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the exemption for Hungary to buy Russian oil and gas will last one year.

Earlier in October, the EU Council adopted its 19th package of sanctions against Russia for launching a military offensive in Ukraine in 2022. The sanctions target Russian energy, banks, crypto exchanges, and entities in China, among others.

In a statement, the Council of the European Union said: “Today’s package introduces a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the EU, starting January 2027 for long-term contracts, and within six months for short-term contracts, and tightens the existing transaction ban on two major Russian state-owned oil producers (Rosneft and Gazprom Neft). The EU is also listing a Tatarstani conglomerate active in the Russian oil sector. In parallel, the EU is taking measures against important third-country operators enabling Russia’s revenue streams. This involves sanctioning Chinese entities – two refineries and an oil trader – that are significant buyers of Russian crude oil.”

Furthermore, the EU announced additional sanctions across the shadow fleet value chain. According to the statement, the 19th package includes the listing of Litasco Middle East DMCC, Lukoil’s prominent shadow fleet enabler based in the United Arab Emirates. Other listings include maritime registries providing false flags to shadow fleet vessels, allowing their continued operation by creating a fraudulent impression of compliance with certification requirements.

The sanctions also targeted the largest port container operator in the Russian Far East, and a leading shipbuilder for Sovcomflot. An additional 117 vessels have been made subject to a port access ban and a ban on the provision of a broad range of services related to maritime transport, bringing the total number of designated vessels to 557. These measures target non-EU tankers that are part of the shadow fleet circumventing the oil price cap mechanism, which otherwise support Russia’s energy sector, or transport military equipment for Russia or stolen Ukrainian grain.

–IANS

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