Hungary will be one of NATO’s eastern bastions
According to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a boycott of Russian oil could take place “fairly quickly” – the news portal NlTimes reported. The Prime Minister explained in a debate in the Dutch parliament on Wednesday that the oil boycott “will not have too much of an impact” on the Dutch economy.
“The European Union has so far imposed harsh sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with new punitive measures,” Rutte said, according to NlTimes.
The prime minister added that banning Russian oil imports would be difficult for Eastern Europe because their refineries depend on Russian oil. In his view, the oil boycott is feasible, but it would not be very successful because Russia could easily sell its oil elsewhere, such as in India.
Rutte supports the EU’s initiative to close its ports in front of Russian ships, but, as he put it, what needs to be done about food ships.
The news portal writes that there are “no taboos” for the Dutch government when it comes to sanctions. However, shutting down Russian natural gas is not possible now because the EU is still too dependent on Russia in this regard.
A report released by the Dutch Economic Planning Agency (CPB) on Wednesday found that the Netherlands, contrary to Rutte’s view, is very sensitive to the disruption of Russia’s energy supply. The CPB’s analyzes show that, although only a few sectors in the Netherlands are directly affected by the possible outage of Russian oil and gas supplies, the performance of all sectors would shrink. According to the planning office, the more integrated a sector is internationally, the greater the impact. If, for example, 50 barely received Russian natural gas, the CPB would shrink severely, according to the Dutch car industry 72, and the clothing industry would also suffer severe damage.
(MTI)