A worker at a gas storage facility in BudapestMOSCOW, Apr 9Payments for Russian gas in rubles do not violate European sanctions, since Budapest has a bilateral contract with Moscow, Zoltan Kovacs, a representative of the Hungarian government, said in an interview with CNN. So he reacted to the words of the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen that the transfer of settlements to rubles would be bypassing the sanctions imposed against Russia. «The European Union does not yet have general purchases of gas and oil for European countries. We continue to adhere to the contracts concluded with Russia regarding oil and gas. In accordance with them, it is a technical issue in which currency to pay. This does not mean circumvention of any sanctions policy. As we well know, the Hungarian economy and the Hungarian population depend on Russian gas by 85 percent,” Kovacs said. «We understand that others have other interests, but our interest is to guarantee the security of our country's energy supply. I want to reassure everyone: Hungary's energy supply is secure, and so it will be in the future,» he wrote on the social network. About Hungary's readiness Prime Minister of the Republic Viktor Orban spoke this week about paying for gas in rubles. According to him, Budapest has no problems with this. Szijjártó, for his part, said that Hungary is now working on the technical details with Gazprom.The Kremlin explained why they decided to pay for gas in rubles The largest Russian banks fell under the restrictions, many countries announced the freezing of Russian assets, various brands announced that they were leaving the country. The Kremlin called these measures an economic war, the likes of which have not yet been, but stressed that they were ready for such a development of events. Among the response measures are restrictions on the withdrawal of capital and the sale of Russian securities by foreign counterparties, as well as the transition to rubles in gas payments for unfriendly countries. The settlement procedure provides that Gazprombank will open special currency and ruble accounts for foreign buyers. The buyer will be able to transfer the currency specified in the gas supply contract to the first account, the bank will sell it on the Moscow Exchange, after which it will pay the supplier. As Vladimir Putin explained, if unfriendly countries do not pay for gas in rubles, Russia will consider this a default on contracts.
Daily Express announced a «riot» in the EU over the idea of an embargo on Russian gas
