Hungary and Ukraine to discuss unblocking of €500 million of military aid – Borrell

Josep Borrell, the head of EU diplomacy, has reported that the Ukrainian and Hungarian sides will hold a new meeting in order to unblock the payment of the eighth €500 million tranche from the European Peace Fund (EPF) which compensates military support for Ukraine to the states who provide it.

Source: Borrell after the meeting of EU states Defence Ministers on 14 November, as a correspondent of European Pravda reports 

Quote: "The Hungarian Defence Minister has explained to us that today a new meeting with the Ukrainians may be held in order to try to unblock the payment of the eighth tranche. I think there is a possibility that it will finally be unblocked. No other decisions are on the table. We are working according to the consensus principle and we need consensus. Thus, Hungarians will continue working with Ukrainians."

Peter Szijjártó, the Hungarian Foreign Minister, confirmed on 13 November that Budapest will continue blocking the allocation of a €500 million tranche from the EPF.

Hungary has been blocking the allocation of these €500 million for months because the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) added a Hungarian bank, OTP Bank, to the list of "sponsors of the war".

At the beginning of October, Ukraine eliminated OTP Bank from the list, thus satisfying one the key demands of Budapest.

Nevertheless, Hungary claims that Ukraine allegedly hasn't provided any guarantees that the situation with OTP Bank or any other Hungarian enterprise will never occur again, so Budapest would keep its veto.

In May, the NACP announced that it had added OTP Bank to the "sponsors of the war" list due to the choice of the bank’s management to continue operating in Russia and to basically recognise the so-called Donetsk/Luhansk People’s Republics.

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