E.U. agrees to phase out Russian oil but exempts pipeline deliveries, diplomats say
An activist from Greenpeace holds a banner reading “Stand for peace not for oil” in front of the parliament building in Budapest on May 30, 2022. European Union countries finally reached a deal to wean off Russian oil, according to two E.U. diplomats and an E.U. official, their most significant effort yet to hit Russia’s economy over the war in Ukraine, though the impact will be blunted by an exemption for pipeline oil — a concession to landlocked holdouts, most notably Hungary.
Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban — a perennial E.U. spoiler and one of Russian President Vladimir — had obstructed a deal, insisting on more time and money to upgrade his country’s oil infrastructure. Orban said a faster phaseout would be like dropping “a nuclear bomb on the Hungarian economy.”While there was sympathy for Hungary’s position, some diplomats said Orban used the situation to hit back after the E.U.
percent of its oil from Russia in 2020 and in March told the United States it was too dependent on Russian energy to join anThe oil phaseout is part of the E.U.’s sixth round of sanctions, a package that will remove Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, and two others from the SWIFT system for international transactions and ban three Russian state-owned broadcasters from the E.U., according to the Commission’s proposal.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the E.U. has worked with the United States and other allies to weaken Russia’s economy, hitting Moscow with a series of sanctions packages — but at the same time continuing to buy Russian fossil fuels.
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