While the European Union struggles to approve another round of sanctions on Russia, a few countries are resisting an oil embargo.

The European Commission is the executive arm and administrative arm of the EU. has presented a six-month phase-out period from Russian oilPart of a larger effort to damage the President Vladimir Putin‘s regime. Hungary and Slovakia — two EU nations with a high dependence on Russian energy — were given until the end of 2023 to abide by the new set of rules. Both nations demand more.

This impasse prevents the EU deliberating on the wider package of sanctions.

Hungary is the EU’s biggest opponent of the oil ban. Prime Minister Viktor Orban — a longtime ally of Putin — has said that ending Russian oil purchases would be an “atomic bomb” on Hungary’s economy.

He stated that “the proposal currently on the table creates a Hungarian issue, and there’s no plan for solving it,” according to a statement.

Budapest has increased imports of Russian natural gas in recent years and is now a major buyer. Eurostat reports that Hungary has seen an increase in its Russian natural gas imports over the past 10 years, from 9.070 millions cubic meters in 2010, to 17.715,000,000 cubic meters in 2019.

Orban supported the EU’s sanctions on Russia, which he had supported until now for their invasion of Ukraine. Orban had formed strong economic and political ties to Russia in the last 10 years, often boasting about his intimate relationship with Putin.

They were able to see their close connections during the coronavirus pandemic, for example. Hungary became the first EU nation to buy a Russian-made Covid vaccine — even though it wasn’t approved by European regulators.

A senior EU official spoke to CNBC Monday, but did not wish to be identified due to sensitive nature of talks. He described Hungary’s stubbornness as “a sad thing” and said so to CNBC.

CNBC was also told by a second EU official who did not wish to be identified due to the sensitive nature of current negotiations that EU diplomats will be trying to resolve the impasse on Tuesday.

The difficulty of these sanctions being passed raises more questions as to what might happen if there were a ban on Russian natural gases, which would make the EU even more dependent on this commodity.

“I am confident that Europe will exit Russia oil soon and Europe gas shortly. It can’t be done in an hour,” Alexander Schallenberg (Austrian minister for foreign affairs), said Saturday to CNBC.

He stated that the EU was less divided than people might believe.

Meanwhile, Sunday saw the G-7 announce its intention to reduce dependence on Russian oil. The United States even went so far as to impose sanctions on executives of Gazprombank and other Russian enterprises.