Hungary has filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against the European Union’s decision to ban imports of natural gas from Russia, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Monday.
Szijjártó announced the move on X following the publication of the regulation on phasing out Russian gas in the EU’s legal database.
Slovakia has also announced that it will file a lawsuit at the Luxembourg-based court.
The minister justified the move by saying that Hungary and Slovakia should not have been outvoted when the decision was taken at the end of January.
In essence, it was a sanctions decision, which should have required unanimity to be adopted, he said.
However, the bloc’s 27 members treated the import ban as a trade policy measure, for which a qualified majority is sufficient for approval.
Szijjártó argued in his post that “the EU Treaties clearly state that each member state decides its choice of energy sources and suppliers.”
Moreover, the “principle of energy solidarity requires the security of energy supply for all member states,” he wrote.
The decision clearly violates that principle in Hungary’s case, according to Szijjártó, “since only more expensive and less reliable energy alternatives are available” without the Russian imports.
The regulation, which was adopted by a majority of EU members, stipulates that natural gas imports from Russia should cease by the end of 2027.
In view of the Kremlin’s continuing invasion of Ukraine, the EU wants to reduce Russia’s revenues from energy and raw material exports.
Hungary is highly dependent on Russian gas. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, the country has made no serious efforts to break free from this dependency.
Its right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is widely regarded as the Kremlin’s closest ally in the EU.