The EU has harmed itself economically with the sanctions it has imposed on Russia over Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said yesterday.
Orban’s remarks came a day after his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, criticized the sanctions as “meaningless,” saying that they would threaten economic growth in the 28-member bloc.
“The sanctions policy pursued by the West, that is, ourselves, a necessary consequence of which has been what the Russians are doing, causes more harm to us than to Russia,” Orban said in a radio interview. “In politics, this is called shooting oneself in the foot.”
Export-driven Hungary is heavily reliant on energy imports from its former communist overlord and early this year Budapest agreed with Russian power firm Rosatom to expand Hungary’s only nuclear plant in a 10 billion euro (US$13 billion) deal. Russia is Hungary’s largest trading partner outside the EU, with exports worth 2.55 billion euros last year.
“The EU should not only compensate producers somehow, be they Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Greek, who now have to suffer losses, but the entire sanctions policy should be reconsidered,” Orban said.
“I will do my utmost — of course we are all aware of Hungary’s weight, so the possibilities are clear — but I am looking for partners to change the EU’s sanctions policy, which I think has not been considered thoroughly enough,” he said.
The Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said on Tuesday that farming exports would not be harmed significantly by a Russian import ban on a range of foods from the EU.
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