Hungary is opposed to the European Union introducing a new series of economic sanctions against Russia due to its intervention in Ukraine, the country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said today.
"This would be the third series of economic sanctions and it would be a success to avoid them because it is not in the interest of Europe, and even less of Hungary," Orban told the economic daily "Vilagazdasag".
He said that so far the Ukrainian crisis and political sanctions have not harmed Hungary's nuclear agreement with Moscow and that he hopes it will remain so.
Hungary supplies about 80 percent of its gas needs by importing it from Russia, and recently a contract, worth 10 billion euros, was signed with the Russian state-owned atomic energy giant "Rosatom" on the expansion of the Hungarian nuclear power plant "Paks", the main producer of electricity in the country. reminds Reuters.
"Rosatom" warned yesterday that some international contracts could suffer due to Western sanctions, RIA Novosti reported.
Russia is also Hungary's largest trading partner outside the EU, with a turnover of 2,55 billion euros last year.
Based on the messages that arrived last week from the former communist EU member states, it can be concluded that their leaders will not support the introduction of a new round of sanctions on trade and economic relations with Moscow.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that the West has not reached the stage that entails the imposition of economic sanctions on Russia and that she has nothing against German companies cooperating with Russian ones.
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