A row over the end of Russian gas flows via Ukraine has intensified as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened to block the next rollover of EU sanctions against Russia unless Brussels helps to achieve a restart of supply,
Reuters reports.
Russian gas exports via Soviet-era pipelines running through Ukraine stopped on Jan. 1 after Ukraine declined to renew a transit agreement with Russia.
Slovakia and Hungary have been pressing the EU to step in to get gas flows restored.
Although Hungary's supply of Russian gas comes via the TurkStream pipeline through Turkey, not via Ukraine, Orban maintains that the Ukraine route is important to Hungary.
Orban told state radio on Friday that Ukraine's move to halt Russian gas transit to Central Europe and the resulting rise in energy prices was "unacceptable".
Orban also said that if gas flows did not restart, Hungary would veto the next rollover of the sanctions the European Union has imposed on Russia over the war, due in around six months.
"Among other things, the Commission has promised to sort out the Ukrainians restarting Russian gas transit," Orban said. "If the Commission does not deliver on what we agreed on, then sanctions will be scrapped."
The EU on Monday renewed the wide-ranging sanctions, after Hungary stopped holding up the move in return for a declaration on energy security.
The Commission was not immediately available to comment on Orban's remarks.
