Europe’s energy solidarity, already strained after three years of war and sanctions, is now openly fracturing along geographic and political fault lines.
Hungary and Slovakia have declared outright rebellion against the European Union’s flagship RePowerEU plan to eliminate all Russian oil and gas imports by the end of 2027. Both countries have formally announced they will take the European Commission to the European Court of Justice the moment the regulation is adopted, branding it an illegal de facto sanction imposed without the required unanimous consent of member states.
“This is nothing less than a massive legal fraud,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó wrote on X last week. “Brussels is using trade and internal-market rules to enforce what should be a foreign-policy sanction needing every country’s agreement.”
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has been equally blunt, warning that the forced cutoff would trigger unaffordable price spikes and industrial collapse key industries in landlocked Central Europe.
A Tale of Two Europe’s
The clash exposes a brutal geographic reality that no amount of Brussels rhetoric can paper over.
Western and Northern Europe have options. France runs on nuclear power. Germany raced to build floating LNG terminals. Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium have world-class regasification capacity. Norway has stepped in as Europe’s new gas giant.
Central Europe has almost none of these luxuries.
Hungary and Slovakia remain tethered to Soviet-era infrastructure—most critically the Druzhba oil pipeline and the Brotherhood gas pipeline network—that was designed to flow in only one direction: from Russia westward. With no access to the sea, no LNG terminals, and painfully slow progress on new interconnectors, both countries face a stark choice: keep buying Russian molecules or watch factories shut and households shiver.
Current dependency numbers tell the story:
Slovakia: ~100 % of crude oil, >60 % of natural gas from Russia
Hungary: 86 % of crude oil, ~40 % of natural gas from Russia
Orbán and Fico Cast Themselves as Defenders of the East
Viktor Orbán, long Brussels’ most persistent thorn, has seized on the issue to rally domestic support, framing the ban as proof that Western elites are willing to let Eastern Europeans “freeze for Ukraine.” Robert Fico, back in power on a platform of pragmatic nationalism, has joined forces, creating the most cohesive anti-Brussels axis the EU has seen in years.
Their timing is helped by an unexpected gift from Washington. Newly re-inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump granted Hungary a one-year waiver from secondary sanctions on Russian energy purchases—on condition that Budapest buys more than €1.4 billion in American nuclear fuel, LNG (when it eventually arrives), and military hardware. The waiver indirectly benefits Slovakia through shared pipeline infrastructure and gives both governments breathing room Brussels never wanted them to have.
Kyiv in the Crossfire
Tensions with Ukraine have meanwhile hit new lows. After Ukrainian drone strikes damaged sections of the Druzhba pipeline inside Russia and Kyiv refused to renew the Gazprom transit deal through Ukraine, Fico threatened to halt emergency electricity exports that currently cover nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s import needs. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired back that Fico was “carrying out Putin’s orders.”
The Baltic Warning
Hungary and Slovakia repeatedly point to the Baltic states as a cautionary tale. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania proudly severed all Russian gas and electricity ties by early 2025—only to face soaring prices, factory closure threats, and the need for permanent EU emergency subsidies. Lithuania still keeps industrial blackout contingency plans on the shelf for peak-demand days.
For Budapest and Bratislava, the Baltic experience is not a model to emulate; it is a nightmare to avoid.
A Symbolic Humiliation
The divide was driven home in almost theatrical fashion last Sunday when electricity prices in France briefly dropped to zero euros for several hours—thanks to mild weather, full nuclear reactors, and roaring wind turbines—while Central Europe braced for another winter of tight supplies and record-high bills.
Winter of Reckoning
The impending ECJ case could become the most consequential legal challenge to EU competence since the eurozone debt crisis. A victory for Brussels would cement its authority to impose sweeping energy sanctions by majority vote. A victory for Hungary and Slovakia could shatter the bloc’s ability to present a united front against Moscow.
Either way, the old East–West fracture inside the European Union—long managed, rarely admitted—has burst into the open. While Western capitals toast their newfound energy resilience, two landlocked nations are preparing to fight for their economic survival.
Europe’s energy fortress may still stand, but its foundations have never looked more uneven.
