Slovakia urges EU to render financial assistance

Slovakian ambassador to the EU Petra Vargova has said that Slovakia will be able to refuse from Russian oil received through the Druzhba pipeline only in case of the EU guarantees on huge economic assistance.

“We need some guarantee from the EU budget that we will not have only our public funding,” UK’s Financial Times reports referring to Vargova’s interview.

The diplomat added that a number of EU member states oppose the idea of using the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) for infrastructure projects envisaging the use of fossil fuels.

She stressed that Slovakian Prime Minister Eduard Heger had been given assurances by the European Commission about the readiness to review the procedure for distributing funds through the EU Recovery Fund, created during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate access to them for Eastern European countries that are more dependent on Russian energy resources.

The ambassadors of the EU countries at a meeting in Luxembourg approved the sixth package of sanctions against Russia on June 2, 2022. Its key point was a ban on the supply of Russian oil by sea, which should come into force in six months. Sanctions were not imposed on supplies through the Druzhba oil pipeline, however, the ambassadors agreed on the possibility of introducing such a ban. Moreover, it is prohibited to render services to Russian companies in the oil industry.