Robert Fico files a complaint to the CJEU. It was about Russian gas

In April, Slovakia will submit a complaint to the Court of Justice of the EU in connection with the Community's decision to stop imports of Russian gas and oil, Prime Minister Robert Fico announced on Friday. In his opinion, the decision was made incorrectly.

The deadline for submitting a complaint is April 27. Hungary has already filed a complaint, but it is not known what the future government in Budapest will decide on this matter, Fico said.

The Slovak government and the outgoing cabinet of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban agree that the ban on imports of Russian raw materials is in fact a sanction.

– We are convinced that in this case it was a sanction measure, which is why it was necessary to adopt this decision unanimously. According to our government, this is a clear violation of all the principles on which the European Union treaties are based, Fico said. According to him, the European Commission knew that some countries were against this regulation, so it bypassed the unanimity requirement and the regulation was adopted by qualified majority.

The Slovak Prime Minister believes that the decision to ban the import of Russian gas harms his country, which does not have direct access to the sea and cannot import liquefied gas using LNG terminals. Slovakia has an agreement with Russia to import gas until 2034. The raw material currently flows to Slovakia through Turkey and other countries via a pipeline with limited capacity. In the past, Slovakia imported Russian gas through Ukraine, which did not extend its transit agreement with Russia two years ago.

Fico recommended that the Ministry of Justice not only submit a complaint to the CJEU, but also an application for interim measures. It is about the court's ruling before the final verdict. – The average time to resolve cases is from one and a half to three years, so it is necessary to file an application for interim measures, Fico said.

Piotr Górecki (PAP)

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