Croatia says 13 tankers carrying non-Russian oil are ready to supply Hungary, even as Budapest presses Ukraine to deliver cheaper Russian fuel in exchange for lifting its veto on a €90bn loan for Kyiv at Thursday’s (19 March) EU summit.

“The total amount of oil that has been shipped is approximately one and a half million tonnes in a month,” Andrej Plenković , Croatia’s prime minister, told reporters in Brussels on Thursday morning, ahead of the meeting.

Plenković says the tankers were ordered by the Hungarian oil company MOL. Four of those tankers have docked in Croatia.

He also said oil from the tankers has been moved to storage facilities further down the Adria pipeline and shipped to refineries in Százhalombatta in Hungary and Bratislava in Slovakia.

To date, the total volume transferred amounts to 1.5 million tonnes. Multiplied by 12, Plenković says that this could supply Hungary and Slovakia with all their oil needs.

“It’s simply a matter of oil prices. So, that is the only issue at stake, and one that everyone likely understands all too well,” he said, noting that Budapest still insists on cheaper Russia fuel.

“They say that price difference is 30 percent lower. So perhaps this gives you a pretty solid answer as to where the problem lies,” he said, in a nod to Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban.

But Orban, also on Thursday, insisted on the Russian oil as he faces an election on 12 April that could dethrone his almost 16-year long rein as Hungary’s prime minister.

Orban’s ‘blackmail’

“The problem of the Ukrainian oil blockade is one that we Hungarians must solve,” he said, accusing the EU of colluding with Ukrainians to prevent the flow towards Hungary.

“Whatever they [EU] say, what we’re seeing is just a charade. They’re on the Ukrainians’ side; we can’t expect anything from them,” he said.

His intransigence on the €90bn loan for Ukraine, which he had already agreed to at the EU summit in December, has angered his European counterparts.

“He’s [Orban] using Ukraine as a weapon in his election campaign, and it’s not good,” said Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo.

“Their neighbour Croatia can also provide this oil,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

“But I guess you know, in the time of elections, people are not that rational,” she added.

Belgium’s prime minister Bart De Wever, who helped broker the €90bn deal last December after first ruling out Euroclear as an option, was equally unimpressed by Orbán.

“He’s actually blocking the solution that was agreed upon in December. That’s not acceptable is it?,” he asked.

Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson made similar comments.

“He’s now blackmailing Ukraine and the entire European Council. My firm view is that he’s doing this for domestic political reasons in Hungary,” said Kristersson.

Austria’s chancellor Christian Stocker also suggested it was an electoral campaign tactic by Orban.

Despite earlier comments from some senior EU diplomats that there was “no plan B” for the €90bn loan, Luxembourg’s prime minister, Luc Frieden, said the remaining 26 member states could still find a way forward

“I think that at 26, if somebody is blocking we can always move forward. That’s what we have done in the past,” he told reporters.