Hungary Rejects EU Sanctions Against Russia, Decides to Wait for Trump

Hungary will now wait until the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump to decide whether to extend sanctions against Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told EU leaders, BLOOMBERG reports, citing sources familiar with the situation.

The EU currently has 15 sanctions packages against Russia, which must be renewed every six months. The next extension is due by the end of January 2025, 11 days after Trump’s inauguration on January 20. “Until now, this has been a routine decision, but an extension requires unanimous support from the 27 member states,” Bloomberg writes.

The agency's sources reported that Orban said at a summit with EU leaders on Thursday, December 19, that he was "not ready to move forward with an extension."

In the spring of 2023, the agency wrote that the US, the EU and a number of other countries would act independently, but in coordination with each other, when preparing new sanctions against Russia.

The Hungarian prime minister has previously repeatedly called for lifting sanctions against Russia and blocked EU initiatives to help Ukraine . The politician also spoke out in support of Trump, in particular suggesting that the Republican shares his views on the need to resolve the conflict between Moscow and Kiev peacefully, and warning that when Trump becomes president, “Europe alone will not be able to remain a supporter of war.”

The European Union has expressed concern about Orban's contacts with Trump.

The press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that the Kremlin does not expect a change in the sanctions policy of the United States after Trump comes to power . Russian billionaires also doubted the prospect of the Republican lifting sanctions against Moscow even in the event of a ceasefire in a conversation with Bloomberg.

Moscow considers the sanctions illegal and demands that they be lifted. The Kremlin said that the restrictions will remain in place for many years and that Russia is proceeding from this when developing its economic policy. The Foreign Ministry promised that Russia will analyze the measures from the point of view of damage to the economy "and retaliatory steps will not be long in coming."

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