Hungary's Foreign Minister confirms blocking of 500 million euros from EU fund, which helps Ukraine with weapons

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, has confirmed that Budapest will continue to block the allocation of a tranche of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund, the funds of which go to finance military aid to Ukraine. 

Source: Szijjártó at a press conference in Brussels following the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, European Pravda writes with reference to Hirado 

Details: The Hungarian foreign minister complained that "extreme pressure" was put on Hungary to agree to the allocation of 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund. 

Quote: "Of course, I did not support it, as we continue to maintain the position that until we receive guarantees from the anti-corruption agency of Ukraine that OTP (the largest Hungarian bank – Ed.) or other Hungarian companies will not be included in the list of international sponsors of war based on trumped-up allegations, we cannot move forward in this matter," he said. 

Szijjártó reminded the council that the mentioned 500 million euros do not go directly to Ukraine, but to the EU states to compensate for the supply of their weapons, so "no one is stopping anyone from supporting Ukraine".

Hungary has been blocking the allocation of funds for months due to the fact that the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) included OTP Bank, the largest Hungarian bank, in the list of sponsors of war.

In early October, Ukraine removed OTP Bank from the list, satisfying one of Budapest's key demands. However, Hungary claims that Ukraine has allegedly not provided guarantees that the situation with OTP Bank or any other Hungarian company will never happen again, so it continues to maintain its veto.

In May, NACP announced that it had included OTP Bank in the list of "sponsors of war" due to the position of the bank's management to continue operations in the Russian Federation and the actual recognition of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

After that, Budapest announced that they would block the allocation of new tranches from the European Peace Fund.

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