Hungary will veto any European Union proposal that restricts Russian energy imports, a senior minister in Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government told HirTV Sunday.
"We have made it clear that we will never support the extension of European Union sanctions against Russia to the energy sector," Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas said.
"We must not adopt sanctions with which we primarily penalize ourselves instead of those we want to sanction," he told Kossuth Radio in a separate interview Sunday.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports that the EU is set to propose an embargo on Russian oil by the end of the year over its unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Restrictions on imports will be introduced gradually until then.
Hungary relies heavily on Russian energy and has been among the most vocal in opposing the increase in sanctions.
"Since such decisions require unanimity, it makes no sense for the commission to propose sanctions affecting natural gas and crude oil that would restrict Hungarian procurements," Gulyas said, referring to the EU's executive.
On Wednesday Russia cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria because the countries declined to pay in rubles, the Russian currency.
RT reports that Moscow demanded that EU members pay for Russian gas in rubles after the West froze Russian assets because of its invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Russia's decision to cut off Poland and Bulgaria was "unjustified and unacceptable," according to RT.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that the mandate to pay for gas in rubles is justified because the West had "stolen" Russian assets, the "majority of which had been earned through the supplies of gas and oil."
Testing the EU's sanctions policy, Orban's government has agreed to pay for Russian energy imports in rubles, according to Bloomberg.
Orban, who was reelected last month, previously called sanctions on Russian energy his "red line."
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