Hungary to take legal action over EU plan to end Russian gas imports

Hungary will take legal action over the EU plan to end Russian gas imports, its foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said today, according to Reuters. The Hungarian foreign minister said Slovakia was also expected to join, but Prime Minister Robert Fico said he had not yet decided. The overnight agreement between EU member states represented in the Council of the EU and representatives of the European Parliament on the plan must still be formally approved by both institutions.

"It is impossible for Hungary to accept and implement an EU decision to end energy supplies from Russia," Szijjártó said in Brussels, where he is attending a NATO ministerial meeting.

He said the matter threatened the country's energy security. Hungary wants to take legal action with Slovakia at the Court of Justice of the European Union once the text is finalised, the minister added.

Slovak Prime Minister Fico said it was not yet clear whether Slovakia would join Hungary's legal action, but his governing party, Direction – Social Democracy (Smer-SD), supports such a move. He added that the country also had sufficient grounds to consider filing a lawsuit.

"We consider this decision harmful to Slovakia and the whole EU," Fico stressed.

He said the government also wanted to examine the extent to which the EU had fulfilled the commitments made to Slovakia by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter sent before the approval of the 18th sanctions package.

Outgoing Czech Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) told reporters today that he believed a ban on Russian gas imports should apply strictly across the whole EU. "The Czech Republic has done what was required; we have already taken those measures over the past two years," he said.

The EU wants to gradually end imports of Russian oil and gas in an effort to deprive the Kremlin of revenue used to finance the war in Ukraine, a point also raised by Jurečka. It also wants EU member states to become independent of energy imports from Russia and less vulnerable to blackmail. The new rules add restrictions on gas imports to the existing sanctions.

The regulation introduces a gradual and legally binding ban on imports of both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Russian gas delivered by pipeline. A full ban on LNG imports will take effect on 1 January 2027, and the ban on pipeline gas imports no later than 1 November 2027.