After failing to reduce their reliance on Moscow for energy, Hungary and Slovakia now want help from Brussels.

You reap what you sow.

Privately, that’s the exasperated sentiment among EU diplomats as Hungary joins with Slovakia to try and leverage EU rules to preserve access to a discounted product nearly everyone else has had to shun: Russian oil.

Their maneuvering comes in the wake of Ukrainian sanctions blocking the transit of pipeline crude sold by Russia’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, which could strip the two countries of a third of their oil imports.

Hungary and Slovakia have gone to the rule book, arguing the penalties violate a 2014 trade deal between Kyiv and the EU and asking the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to intervene.

  • @saltesc
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    581 month ago

    The scenario…

    But it exempted pipeline supplies — including those coming to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline — to give those countries time to find alternative supplies, with the understanding they would do so rapidly.

    The situation so far…

    The Czech Republic aims to end its imports from Moscow by 2025,

    Good job, Czech.

    while Slovakia too has begun upgrading its primary refinery to process more non-Russian crude.

    Okay, could be doing much better, Slovakia. You’ll need more than that.

    But Hungary chose to go the other way, instead ramping up oil imports via the pipeline by 50 percent compared to 2021.

  • @fluxion
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    351 month ago

    Maybe they can suck some oil out of Putin’s pipeline

  • @[email protected]
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    251 month ago

    Hungary and Slovakia have gone to the rule book, arguing the penalties violate a 2014 trade deal between Kyiv and the EU and asking the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to intervene.

    How dare they trying to stay alive in a war against their existence. It’s inconvenient for others if they behave like that! 😭

    • RubberDuck
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      11 month ago

      And this is the time that Hungary really needs something… and every other country in the EU with a grievance can just block, and block, and block… one after the other. Each citing the rule that supercedes all other rules… “Fuck Around, Find Out”.

      Hungary has shown itself to be a bad faith actor, no need to try and get them to play ball. Cause the first moment they are not dependent, they will just revert to the current form.

  • Optional
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    21 month ago

    Boy does that photo look familiar

  • Media Bias Fact CheckerB
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    -41 month ago
    Politico Europe Media Bias Fact Check Credibility: [High] (Click to view Full Report)

    Politico Europe is rated with High Creditability by Media Bias Fact Check.

    Bias: Left-Center
    Factual Reporting: High
    Country: Germany
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    Beep boop. This action was performed automatically. If you dont like me then please block me.💔
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      • @[email protected]
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        221 month ago

        I like the bot but the formatting of these comments is ridiculous and way too in your face for what it is. Use smaller font damnit!

        • @[email protected]
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          1 month ago

          I don’t, it’s the biased garbage opinion of 1 random man from North Carolina.

          He’s ridiculously pro-Israel, and will actively rate those critical of Israel as less trustworthy.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 month ago

              Or just don’t leave judging the media up to a bot and a shitty website?

              We don’t need a site to tell us Fox is biased to the right etc. It’s not adding anything to the discussion, it’s creating metadrama about if the source is legitimate or not.

          • @Carrolade
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            11 month ago

            For the record, the BBC has frequently reported on Israeli warcrimes, yet somehow retains a good rating. It sounds to me like you just eat up all the anti-Israeli stuff, including the anti-Israeli war propaganda. A more unbiased perspective would try to identify the propaganda employed by both the IDF and hamas.

              • @Carrolade
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                01 month ago

                The primary complaint seems to be the lack of historical perspective in recounting who is ultimately responsible for the conflict.

                This is sadly not a legitimate complaint, because the historical context for who deserves to live where should not have any arbitrary beginning date. Ultimately, none of us should deserve to live anywhere, when where we live is based in patterns of migration and conflict spanning thousands of years, and every acre of land could be rightfully claimed by many different groups.

                Instead, if we truly seek peace, we must acknowledge that the status quo changes over time, and it is the breaking of the current peace that conflict should be framed against, over and above any historical redress. From this framework, someone who loses land is not allowed to begin a new conflict in an attempt to regain what they have lost. This may seem unfair, but ultimately it is necessary if we are to forgo humanity’s long history of warfare.

                So, I’m sorry, but it does not matter how Palestinians feel about their ancestral homelands or historical atrocities committed against them. When they begin fresh violence in any effort to reclaim land they have lost, those warriors become the enemies of peace. Same as how the Israelis became the enemies of peace when they pushed fresh settlement into the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords. This is not a pro-Israeli position, it it not a pro-Palestinian position. It is an anti-war position that rejects both Israeli and Palestinian propaganda points. It is distinct from any position that would give Palestinians preferential justification for violence, which would be pro-Palestinian propaganda. It similarly gives Israelis no preferential justification for violence, which would be pro-Israeli propaganda.

                Any responsible news organization should work from within this framework.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 month ago

                  Yes it is a legitimate complaint, ignoring the traditional owners of the land and favouring the settler colonists is a problem. Likewise the historical context is within living lifetime for many people in the world, Israel isn’t even a 100 year old state.

                  The “status quo” was decades of apartheid and systematic abuses against Palestinians by Israel.

                  The ‘anti-war’ shit was what that the Russians tried to pull with Ukraine in re-framing their invasion by discrediting support for their opposition, not buying it here either.

                  Fight against genocide, don’t sit on the fence and act morally righteous because ‘both sides’.