Hungary opposes new sanctions and visa restrictions for russians
Hungary does not support the introduction of visa restrictions for russians or the complication of the visa issuance procedure
It was written on Facebook by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, after a meeting with his Estonian colleague Urmas Reinsalu, Rubryka reports.
"We talked about a proposal that would strengthen the practice of issuing European visas to citizens of russia. Here we are in solidarity with the position of the German chancellor and do not plan to introduce any restrictions," Szijjártó wrote.
He also said that he discussed with Reinsalu a new package of sanctions that the Estonian government will initiate.
However, Budapest is against their strengthening.
"I told him that, as a neighboring country, we are particularly interested in establishing peace as soon as possible. However, our assessments differed on whether sanctions would contribute to this.
The government of Estonia will initiate another package of sanctions, so I stated that we do not even want to discuss energy sanctions," the minister said in a statement.
Szijjártó reiterated that it is currently physically impossible to provide Hungary with oil and natural gas without russian energy resources.
"And we will not favor Hungarian people paying the war's price. Energy sanctions will harm Europe more than russia, so their strengthening will be contrary to common sense," the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry emphasized.
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal stated that they opposed the ban on entry of russian tourists to the European Union.
"Portugal believes that the main goal of the sanctions regime should be to punish the russian military machine, not the russian people," the message states.
In addition to Portugal, Germany, Greece, and Cyprus have already opposed the ban on issuing tourist visas to all russians.
At a meeting on August 31, EU foreign ministers will discuss visa restrictions for russians amid the war in Ukraine.
