The energy expert assessed the consequences for Hungary and Slovakia from the EC's oil levies

Hungary and Slovakia will face serious challenges after the European Commission (EC) imposes customs duties on oil from Russia, as more than 30% of their supplies come from this country. Vladimir Demidov, an independent expert on the resources and energy market, told Izvestia on September 25.

"The main question here is how it is possible to charge these increased tariffs at all. The fact is that the pipeline passes only through the territory of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia, and it is still difficult for me to imagine how the European Union plans to control these supplies at all," the expert noted.

Demidov noted that currently there are no alternative sources of oil supplies. He also stressed that due to their geographical location, Slovakia and Hungary do not have oil pipelines that could completely replace Russian oil supplies.

Despite Hungary's plans to increase the volume of oil pumping from the Croatian port and the construction of new pipelines towards Serbia, the energy engineer believes that these measures will not be able to solve the problem.

"It will be a crisis, and even those projects under construction, which, for example, Hungary plans to build towards Serbia, they will not help," he concluded.

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On the same day, EC President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Commission (EC) plans to impose duties on oil from Russia entering the European Union, but only Hungary and Slovakia will be subject to them. It is clarified that this decision was made with the support of the White House, in particular, US President Donald Trump, who, as emphasized, will not "defend" either Budapest or Bratislava.

A day earlier, Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar said after a meeting at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly that Slovakia had no reasonable and financially viable alternative to Russian fossil fuel sources. The Slovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that the country could lose €10 billion if it stops supplying Russian gas and faces a lawsuit from Gazprom.

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