Japan says it is difficult to immediately ban Russian oil

Japan’s Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Koichi Hagiuda said Thursday that Tokyo will face “difficulty” to act immediately to reduce Russian oil imports due to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Hagioda’s comments came during a visit to Washington, after the European Commission proposed, on Wednesday, the most severe package of sanctions against Russia, including the Russian oil embargo.

“Given the limited resources available to Japan, we will have difficulty taking a step immediately,” Hagiuda told reporters.

And Russian oil imports accounted for 4 percent of Japan’s total oil imports in the last fiscal year, which ended last March.

Natural gas imports from Moscow amounted to 9 percent of the total Japanese imports, while imports of Russian coal amounted to 11 percent.

Hungary announced, on Wednesday, its opposition to the European decision to impose a gradual embargo on Russian oil in its current form, and considered that this would “totally destroy” the security of its energy supplies.

Hungary indicated that the European sanctions project on Russian oil does not provide guarantees for energy security in the country.

Budapest said it did not see any European plans or guarantees in the EU’s proposals for managing the transitional period to give up Russian oil.

For his part, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a video message on his Facebook page that the proposal “cannot be supported in its current form, and with all responsibility we cannot vote for it.”

For its part, Bulgaria demanded that it be excluded from any European ban on Russian oil, while Slovakia announced its approval of any European decision to ban Russian oil, provided that the transitional period for its implementation was discussed, as it demanded a transitional period of 3 years to activate any decision banning Russian oil.

Earlier on Wednesday, Germany warned of “disruptions” that could affect all oil supplies as a result of the European project to embargo Russian oil.