The EU lacks the ability to enforce anything. Why they would choose to accommodate two nations who's political leadership on holds contempt for the West and would like nothing more than to join Russia is beyond me. Orban and Fico have made it clear that Russia steers EU Policy through Orban and Fico. Hungary and Slovakia both yearn for the Russian World while filling their pockets with EU handouts.
How hard is it to permanently sabotage their supply pipelines from Russia if the carrot doesn't work? Serious question. Not sanctioning it, just observing there are multiple paths to the desired outcome.
> Yet in 2024, Hungary and Slovakia remained 87% dependent on Russian crude transported through a single pipeline—the Druzhba, which transits a war zone and experienced two significant outages in 12 months.
As CREA and CSD’s report demonstrates, no technical or infrastructural barriers prevent these countries from breaking free of their reliance on Russian crude. The Adria pipeline remains underutilised. What’s missing is political will.
