BUFAPEST, February 2. /TASS/. Hungary continues to block 500 million euro in the European Peace Facility (EPF) from being used to help Ukraine, since Kiev has not yet given guarantees that it would not blacklist Hungarian companies as international sponsors of war without grounds, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
"I am speaking about a sum of 500 million euro as compensation for the earlier provided weapons, which cannot be paid because of Hungary’s reservation," he said during a break in the EU-ASEAN forum in Brussels. He noted that this issue had been raised at his meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and head of the presidential office Andrey Yermak in Uzhgorod, Ukraine’s Transcarpathian Region, on January 29.
"I asked my Ukrainian colleagues to ensure fair conditions for companies, which are important for the Hungarian economy and which are operating in Ukraine. They promised to look at what can be done," he said, adding that as soon as the Ukrainian side implements what it has promised, Hungary will decide on its further steps.
Ukraine previously put Hungary’s largest bank, OTP Bank, which runs a subsidiary in Russia, on the list of international sponsors of war. Later, it was removed from the list at Hungary’s insistence, but Budapest demanded guarantees from the Ukrainian authorities that nothing like this would happen to other Hungarian companies. Until this is done, Hungary will be blocking the allocation of funds from the European Peace Facility to compensate EU countries’ spending on weapons and munitions supplies to Ukraine, Budapest warned.