Hungary's Economy Suffers Significant Damage Due to Sanctions Against Russia, Orbán

Budapest opposes the EU's sanctions policy but supports the 19th package of restrictions against Russia, as it directly does not harm Hungary's economy. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made this statement while participating in an EU summit in Brussels.

"This sanctions package, although it continues the policy of restrictions, which was fundamentally wrong, does not harm Hungary. We always negotiate in a way that even in the case of adopting new packages of sanctions, they do not have a negative impact on our country," the Prime Minister's words were quoted by the Magyar Nemzet newspaper.

Orbán also noted that Hungary's economy has sustained damages of 20-30 billion euros due to the conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed against Russia. The Prime Minister did not rule out that Hungary would seek ways to circumvent the EU's ban on oil and gas supplies from Russia and will continue to oppose that decision.

"There are sanctions against certain Russian oil companies... We are working on circumventing them," Orbán said during a morning program on Kossuth Radio. He mentioned that he discussed this issue with the leadership of the Hungarian MOL company, which uses Russian oil in its refineries.