The country's Defense Minister, Krysztof Szalai-Bobrownicki, explained this by the fact that Kiev has not yet excluded the Hungarian OTP bank from its list of "international sponsors of the war"
BUDAPEST, August 30. /tass/. Hungary refused to discuss the allocation of funds by the European Union for military assistance to Ukraine, since the authorities of this country have not yet excluded the Hungarian OTP bank from their list of "international sponsors of the war." This was stated by Hungarian Defense Minister Krysztof Szalaj-Bobrownicki following an informal meeting with EU colleagues held in Toledo.
"Ukraine has included the largest Hungarian OTP bank in the list of "international sponsors of the war." I explained at the meeting that this is unacceptable. Until OTP is excluded from this list, we will not continue negotiations on the amount of funding [for military assistance to Ukraine]," the head of the Defense Ministry said in a video message on his Facebook page (banned in Russia, owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation).
Szalaj-Bobrownicki noted that Hungary sees the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict "in an immediate ceasefire and peace talks, but the rest of the EU countries support the continuation of the war, sparing no money and weapons." According to him, EU leaders want to spend an additional €100 million on the supply of weapons to the Ukrainian army and Hungary is under "enormous pressure" trying to force it to accept this plan.
Nevertheless, "Hungary stands for peace and stability at all levels and in all forums," because this conflict cannot be resolved by military means, the head of the Defense Ministry explained. He believes that "hundreds of thousands more people will die in vain if the EU countries refuse to change their position" regarding the Ukrainian conflict. At the same time, the Hungarian Government does not intend to change its approach to this problem. "We will not give up," the minister said, adding that at the meeting in Toledo he "represented the interests of the Hungarian people."
The head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrel, said at the end of this meeting that the European Union intends to create a fund for military assistance to Ukraine for 2024-2027, from which €5 billion could be allocated annually. According to him, it is envisaged that this fund "will work within the framework of the European Peace Fund." It is expected that, following the heads of the military departments, the EU foreign ministers will consider this issue at their meeting in Toledo on Thursday.
Budapest has long demanded that Kiev remove OTP from the blacklist and offered the leaders of the EU countries to exert pressure on the Ukrainian authorities in this regard. On May 4, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) of Ukraine included the Hungarian OTP banking group among the "international sponsors of the war" due to the fact that it continues to work in Russia. NAPC has included several dozen more foreign companies in this list, which also maintain a presence on the Russian market.
