The Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that Hungary “is not firm” in blocking 500 million euros for ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces, admitting the lifting of the veto if “its demands are met.”
“This issue has been addressed […] and, in relation to that, what Hungary said is that if its demands are met, it will surely lift the veto,” João Gomes Cravinho declared, speaking to Portuguese journalists in Brussels, at the end of a meeting of the heads of EU diplomacy.
When asked about the Hungarian blockade on the mobilization of more funds for Ukraine in the ambit of the European Peace Support Facility (MEAP), the official said: “It did not seem to me from the position of the Hungarian minister that we were facing an inflexible position “.
“We will find a way, I’m sure,” he concluded.
Last week, Hungary blocked MEAP disbursements to deliver ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces, not accepting this support and “the increasingly hostile attitude of Ukraine.”
In a video statement shared on his Facebook social network account, the head of Hungarian diplomacy, Péter Szijjártó, said that Budapest did not approve the disbursement of a new sum of 500 million euros, because “he does not agree that the EU, which has other instruments, uses MEAP exclusively for Ukraine.”
According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, such a disbursement “would leave insufficient resources to promote the interests of the EU in other regions”, such as the Western Balkans, the Sahel region and North Africa, in addition to “increasing the risk of escalation of the conflict “. in Ukraine.
Péter Szijjártó also criticized what he described as “Ukraine’s increasingly hostile attitude towards Hungary”, after the inclusion of the Hungarian bank OTP in the blacklist drawn up by the Ukrainian authorities to sanction companies that support Russia in the invasion of Ukraine .
According to the head of Hungarian diplomacy, the country will block disbursements under MEAP as long as kyiv keeps OTP, the Central European country’s largest bank, on the list of international war sponsors.
Unanimity is required among the EU Member States, in the Council, to approve the use of these funds, whose initial endowment of 5,700 million euros for the period 2021-27 was recently increased by 2,000 million euros.
As Ukraine prepares a counter-offensive against Russia, stopping these payments could deter some countries from continuing to supply the country with weapons.
Until now, Hungary has never blocked the use of this mechanism, to which it also contributes financially, despite not supplying arms and ammunition to Ukraine.
MEAP was created in 2021 to support the EU’s military and defense partners, with the main objective of preventing conflicts, preserving peace and enhancing international security and stability.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: TSF
