The European Union’s sanctions imposed on Russia have not lived up to expectations, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Speaking from a European Community meeting in Prague on Thursday, the Hungarian leader reminded his European counterparts that the sanctions have not brought an end to the war, which began more than seven months ago. He claimed “Europe is slowly bleeding” while “Russia is making good money in the meantime.”
EU leaders, including representatives from Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, discussed the strong possibility of gas and electricity shortages across Europe in the coming months as the continent feels the squeeze of its own energy sanctions imposed on Russia.
[pp id=45848]
“Hungary previously fought for an exemption from the oil embargo and sanctions, and in recent days we managed to achieve that the new sanctions do not apply to Hungary’s nuclear energy or to Hungary’s gas supply,” Orbán said in a Facebook video following the meeting.
“However, the sanctions have skyrocketed the price of energy, and this affects Hungary as well,” he warned.
“The prices are almost unaffordable, Russia has not fallen to its knees at all, while the European economies are bleeding,” stressed Orbán, who has been a long-standing critic of the sanctions imposed on Russia and has called for a change in direction from the European Commission.
“It is obvious that the sanctions policy needs to be changed, and this is the stakes of the next meetings,” he added.
