European Union member states are likely to overcome their differences on a new round of sanctions on Russia, a Polish deputy foreign minister has said.
An agreement on a new package of sanctions has been held up by disagreements between EU states over its scope. Some member countries, notably Hungary, have objected to plans to ban Russian oil.
“As for the sixth package of sanctions, there will be more talks today, we will see what their effect will be. We are quite close to concluding an agreement,” Pawel Jablonski told the private broadcaster Radio Zet on Monday.
“Frankly speaking, rather closer than farther and no country, neither Hungary, nor Austria, nor Germany, nor anyone else will most likely block it,” he added.
The European Union has already introduced five packages of sanctions against Russia in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the sixth package of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, including a “complete ban on all Russian oil” and refined petroleum products within the next six months and more sanctions against banks.
Last week, as part of the sixth round of sanctions, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, proposed to phase out supplies of Russian crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of 2022.
Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s president, admitted that the ban “will not be easy” to implement it because some member states are heavily dependent on Russian oil.
On Friday, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, said that his country could not support the EU’s new sanctions package in its present form, describing the EC’s proposals as “an atomic bomb dropped on the Hungarian economy.”
Thus, he repeated the position expressed in the letter addressed to von der Leyen in which he said that the Commission must not create a situation in which sanctions would cause more harm to Hungary than to Russia.