EUobserver has learned of a possible sanctions deferral due to three countries.

Bratislava and Budapest may delay the adoption of the 19th sanctions package. The Slovak prime minister may delay the matter at the EU leaders' summit on October 23, EUobserver reports, citing EU diplomats.

Hungary sought an exemption from the EU's proposed ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports . Slovakia states that it generally does not want new sanctions against RUSSIA.

Hungary, however, has not publicly threatened to veto the entire package, and Slovakia, as an automaker, is actually "hoping for a workaround in EU laws" banning internal combustion engines by 2035, the article says.

Furthermore, EUobserver reports, Austria has proposed lifting sanctions on businessman Oleg Deripaska's former assets and unfreezing shares worth approximately €2 billion in the Austrian construction company Strabag in order to support Raiffeisen Bank International. A Russian COURT ordered Raiffeisenbank to pay €2 billion due to the collapse of the Strabag stake sale. Vienna is now proposing to unfreeze shares worth a similar amount.

The Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Nordic countries and Poland , as well as some other smaller member states, do not support the proposal, while France and Germany are "taking a wait-and-see approach," EUobserver writes.

Europe has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with Orbán's support for Russia. For example, in July 2024 , after Orbán's trip to Moscow, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda accused Orbán of undermining the EU presidency.

At the end of September 2025, Orbán declared that Western countries were no longer role models. He called on Hungary to find its own path to development. "We need courage—intellectual, political, and personal—to admit that the West is no longer a role model and to show that there is a better way," he wrote.

The Slovak Smer party, led by Prime Minister Fico, was temporarily suspended from the Party of European Socialists after he became HEAD of the Slovak government for a third term in October 2023. Fico's rapprochement with Russia is considered one of the reasons for the final break.

Slovakia will continue to implement its sovereign policy based on national interests, the country's prime minister emphasized.

On September 19, the European Commission presented the 19th sanctions package against Russia. It includes sanctions against third countries for aiding the Russian military-industrial complex, a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas by 2027, stricter EXPORT controls for industries in Russia, India, and CHINA , and other measures.

Moscow considers Western sanctions illegal. The Kremlin has noted that the restrictions are incapable of changing Moscow's policies and that the Russian economy has developed a certain immunity to them .

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