Germany blamed for alleviating Russian oil embargo to benefit its own economy

GERMANY was last night accused of deliberately watering down the EU’S planned embargo on Russian oil imports to benefit its own economy.

European sources told The Daily Telegraph that Berlin wanted an exemption for deliveries via pipeline to be extended from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the entire bloc.

In a bid to unlock talks over the EU’S sixth package of sanctions against Moscow, German officials proposed only placing the embargo on sea shipments of Russian oil. The move was originally negotiated in order to win over landlocked Hungary, which has blocked the EU’S latest round of punitive measures, and give it more time to rearrange its supplies away from Russian oil.

But an EU diplomat said Berlin hijacked the talks in order to secure wider concessions that would benefit its own economy. They said: “Initially it was about giving Viktor Orban [Hungary’s prime minister] space, but now Germany has seen it as an opportunity to help itself. Germany has pushed for this … to narrow the scope of the sanctions on Russia.”

Hungary was seen as the main holdout in the bloc’s attempt to end imports of Russian oil by the end of the year.

Budapest, which is reliant on pipeline deliveries from Russia, has blocked the sixth package of sanctions because it cannot easily get oil from elsewhere.

“It would be humiliating ... to remove the oil embargo part of the package completely only to push through the other elements,” an EU official said.

“So the idea is to have an embargo on Russian oil and exempt the Russian Druzhba pipeline supplying Hungary only for some time, to give the European Commission and Hungary time to solve the problem.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, criticised the EU’S divisions over its latest sanctions package, saying: “How many more weeks will the EU try to agree on a sixth package?”