A diplomatic row between Hungary and Ukraine over the halted Druzhba oil pipeline deepened on Monday after a planned meeting in Brussels failed to take place, with Budapest claiming Kyiv had withdrawn at the last minute.
The talks were expected to involve representatives from Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine alongside EU officials as part of ongoing efforts to resolve the dispute over the Soviet-era pipeline that supplies Russian crude to Central Europe.
Speaking ahead of an EU energy ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the Ukrainian side had cancelled its participation shortly before the discussions were due to begin.
“The Ukrainians cancelled just a few minutes ago,” he told reporters as the Council of the European Union’s energy summit got underway.
The dispute centres on the Druzhba pipeline, a major energy artery that carries Russian oil to refineries in several Central European countries. Deliveries through the southern branch serving Hungary and Slovakia have been suspended since late January after infrastructure near the Brody hub in western Ukraine was damaged during the ongoing war.
Kyiv has said the disruption was caused by Russian strikes on the pipeline system and insists repairs are under way despite the security risks created by the conflict. Hungarian and Slovak officials have rejected that explanation, at first accusing Ukraine of repairing the damage too slowly and later suggesting that the infrastructure may not have been seriously affected at all.
The disagreement has taken on wider political significance within the European Union. Hungary and Slovakia have used their veto powers in the Council of the EU to block additional sanctions on Russia as well as the disbursement of a €90 billion financial package intended to support Ukraine’s economy during the war.
Hungary has also rejected proposals from the European Commission to compensate for the lost supplies by increasing imports through Croatia’s Adria pipeline. Szijjártó dismissed the idea during discussions in Brussels, saying Budapest does not want to become dependent on a single alternative route.
“We don’t want to be in a situation where it is exclusively Croatia supplying us,” he stated.
EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen, who met Ukrainian representatives earlier in the day, said Kyiv was continuing efforts to restore the damaged infrastructure. According to him, the Ukrainian authorities are “working as hard as they can to fix the pipeline”, although he declined to comment on whether Brussels would proceed with a proposed fact-finding mission to inspect the site.
