EU officials are considering offering financial compensation to Hungary to persuade Prime Minister Viktor Orban to sign sanctions to ban Russian oil imports .

Politico writes about this with reference to three EU representatives.

Budapest may receive money as part of the new energy strategy of the European Union.

The European Commission hopes to use payment mechanisms in a new energy strategy called REPowerEU, which will be announced on May 18 and should include funds for EU countries, including Hungary. The REPowerEU strategy aims to phase out the bloc from Russian fossil fuels well before 2030.

Ensuring Hungary’s support for the plan to block all EU energy imports from Russia is essential to support the political goal of strong and united European opposition to Vladimir Putin’s actions.

The latest EU sanctions plan, circulated on Sunday, provided for Hungary and Slovakia, heavily dependent on Russian oil, until the end of 2024 to phase out Russian oil. This is two years more than the rest of the EU. The Czech Republic will have a deadline until the end of June 2024.

But Hungary has indicated that it needs even more time to reduce its dependence on Russian oil.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen discussed the issue of banning Russian oil with Viktor Orban.

The day before, Viktor Orban said that Hungary could not support the new package of sanctions of the European Union, which includes an embargo on oil imports from the Russian Federation in its current version.

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