Europe Confronts Difficult Path in Making a Russian Oil Ban Work

The European Union’s move to ban Russian crude this year will cause major headaches but it should just about be workable if some countries are shown leniency.

There’s still opposition within the bloc. Hungary has previously said it would veto a ban and Slovakia will demand an exemption, even though the two countries will be given an additional year to to comply. Both rely on crude delivered through the Druzhba pipeline from Siberia to run their refineries. But Germany, which had long argued against the move, is now ready to support it.