Hungary’s foreign minister says Brussels has failed on Russia sanctions
Hungary’s foreign minister strongly criticized the European Union’s sanctions against Russia, arguing they have damaged its members’ economies more than their target’s as well as failing to stop the war in Ukraine.
“If we make an assessment, an analysis, about the impact of sanctions, it’s obvious that they have not fulfilled expectations,” Péter Szijjártó told CNBC’s Geoff Cutmore at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“Because what was the expectation at the beginning of March, end of February, when we discussed the first package of sanctions? That they will put Russia’s economy on its knees, therefore the war will be stopped soon,” he said.
Sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia include travel bans and asset freezes on a host of high-profile individuals; import and export bans on a range of goods; and an oil price cap in collaboration with the G-7 and other allies. The bloc has also aimed to dramatically cut its natural gas imports from Russia.
Szijjártó continued: “Russia’s economy is not on its knees, definitely. We can have different assessments of how badly they perform but they’re not on their knees, and the war is not coming to its end. And Europe’s economy is suffering more from sanctions than the Russian economy.”
“So if you look at it in a practical way, not in an ideological way, what was the impact of sanctions, you see they are more harmful to Europe than Russia. So we should not more forward with the sanctions because simply they have not fulfilled the expectations and target we have put on them.”
The Russian ruble was the worst-performing emerging market currency last year despite holding up for some time after the invasion of Ukraine, and the International Monetary Fund has forecast its GDP will shrink by 3.4% in 2022 with inflation averaging 13.8%, with a further economic contraction this year.
Recent research from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, estimated the G-7′s price cap had cost Moscow an estimated 160 million euros ($171.8 million) per day.
The war and resultant energy crisis and food supply have also driven up inflation in EU countries and raised the specter of recession, though other factors including the impact of the pandemic on workforces and supply chain issues have also been raised as factors.
Szijjártó said Hungary condemned the war and was standing with Ukraine, but reiterated that he does not believe sanctions are the path to peace.
“At the end of the day, we have to contribute to help reconstruct Ukraine, but if we ruin our own economies we will not be in a position to help Ukraine be reconstructed,” he said.
Asked why Hungary therefore voted in favor of sanctions, he said it had achieved exemptions in areas that were vital to its national interests, such as purchases of oil and gas because it cannot import from other sources due to pipeline infrastructure.
Szijjártó defended Hungary’s decision not to send weapons to Ukraine, as western powers including the U.S. have been doing and which the leaders of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania on Tuesday argued should be increased.
He said it had instead chosen to provide humanitarian assistance to the 1 million Ukrainian refugees that have arrived in the country and would advocate for peace talks, as it did not want the Hungarian community based at the border between the countries to be targeted in the war.
Szijjártó also accused the European Union of withholding money owed to it through European funds tied to bloc-wide economic performance because of, he said “political reasons … because Brussels hates that there is an anti-mainstream, right-wing, patriotic, Christian democratic government in Hungary for more than 12 years now, and it is still successful.”
The European Commission directed CNBC to a comment spokesperson Peter Stano gave regarding Hungary and sanctions on Monday, stating: “All the sanctions decisions in the EU are made by member states in unanimity.”
“Until now the European Union member states have adopted nine wide-ranging packages of sanctions against Russia for its illegal aggression against Ukraine, reflecting on EU policy agreed by the 27 member states that we stand by Ukraine and we stand by them in a number of tracks, economical, financial, military and through putting pressure on Putin’s regime through sanctions and international isolation.”
Stano said these were constantly being reviewed and any future decision would again by in unanimity.
Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal
Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters
Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.
The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.
The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.
The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”
Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.
The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.
Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.
The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.
The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.
“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”
The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.
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![This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/05/EV-mobile-charging-with-Yoshi-Mobility-3.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”
November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).
It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.
Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”
May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.
“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.
The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)
Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)
Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.
The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.
To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz just opened more DC fast chargers at Buc-ee’s in Texas
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