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Slovak PM Robert Fico urged the EU to resume dialogue with Russia and lift sanctions on energy imports after talks with Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Citing an ongoing energy crisis and Druzhba pipeline disruptions, both leaders criticised EU policies and stressed joint action, as tensions with Ukraine grow over blocked oil supplies and halted gas flows.

Bratislava: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has called on the European Union (EU) to resume dialogue with Russia and lift sanctions on Russian energy raw materials, after holding a phone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, local media STVR reported.

"The EU, and especially the EC (the European Commission), should immediately resume dialogue with Russia and ensure such a political and legal environment that individual member states and the EU as a whole replenish the missing gas and oil reserves and enable the supply of these strategic raw materials from all possible sources and directions, including Russia," Fico said in a post on social media on Saturday (local time).

He urged the "senseless sanctions" banning gas and oil imports from Russia to be lifted, and called for "decisive steps" to resume the operation of the Druzhba pipeline, reports Xinhua, quoting STVR media.

According to Fico, the phone call with Orban confirmed that the huge energy crisis cannot be tackled only at the national level. Fico said the governments of Slovakia and Hungary are protecting national economies and their citizens from the "ideological blindness and incompetence" of the EC.