EU high representative for foreign policy Josep Borrell is to be commended for his disarmingly frank comments (“EU weighs giving Hungary time and cash to agree oil sanctions”, Report, May 7) on the constraints facing Hungary as well as Slovakia and the Czech Republic endorsing the EU’s proposed embargo on Russian oil imports.

Borrell rightly points out that the EU “cannot put proposals on the table that do not accord with reality”. It’s a bit late in the day for that. The EU had all the data necessary to have reached that conclusion ages ago.

The EU Commission obviously did not model the feasibility, much less the likely impact, of the proposed embargo on these countries, which now, it appears, need “more time and money” to adapt to the proposed oil embargo.

Awkward as it may be for the EU to acknowledge, this represents an appalling failure in planning and policy implementation. Rolling out proposals without first thinking through the effects on member states and the wider EU undermines the wider credibility of its sanctions regime.

Borrell is left seeking a solution to problems that should have been identified at the outset.

Ray Kinsella
Ashford, County Wicklow, Ireland