Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said that French President Emmanuel Macron is correct in saying that the Russo-Ukraine war is costing European nation states substantially more than the United States, adding that Europe ought to re-evaluate sanctions immediately in order to save European industry.
The Hungarian prime minister’s comments, posted to Twitter on Monday, December 5th, came in response to statements made by Macron earlier this week during an interview with the U.S. broadcaster CBS, where he said: “The cost of this war is not the same on both sides of the Atlantic,” noting that Europe is buying more oil and gas from the U.S. but at a price that is six times what Americans pay.
In the interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Macron put forward that the Russo-Ukraine war has precipitated tension—at a level not seen in many years—between the historically allied United States and Europe.
“I think this administration and President Biden personally is very much attached to Europe,” Macron began. However, “when you look at the situation today, there is indeed a de-synchronization. Why? Energy. Europe is a gas and oil buyer. The U.S. is a producer. And when you look at the situation, our industries and our households are not buying at the same price. So there is a big gap impacting purchasing power and competitiveness of our societies.”
Prime Minister Orbán, responding to the ideas Macron presented during the interview, wrote: “President Emmanuel Macron is right: the cost of the Russia-Ukraine War is not the same on both sides of the Atlantic. If we want the European industry to survive, we must address the European energy crisis swiftly. It’s high time to re-evaluate the sanctions.”
Previously, Macron, when speaking about the exceptionally high prices the U.S. was selling oil and gas to Europe for, said that “this is not how friends behave towards each other.”
Macron isn’t the only European minister to express such sentiments. As The European Conservative reported in October, Robert Habeck, the Vice Chancellor of Germany who also serves as the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, slammed ‘friendly’ Washington for profiteering from the energy crisis precipitated by the Russo-Ukraine war, accusing them of charging Germany and other EU states of “astronomical” prices for natural gas.
