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Hungary unwilling to discuss EU funding of military assistance for Kiev — foreign minister

"Everybody feels, everybody sees and everybody knows that this is nonsense, and until this nonsense is removed, we will refuse to discuss any financial issues," Peter Szijjarto noted

BUDAPEST, August 31. /TASS/. Hungary has no intention of discussing earmarking additional EU funds for military assistance to Ukraine at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers, as Hungarian bank OTP remains blacklisted by Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told his EU counterparts at an informal meeting in Toledo, Spain.

"There should not be a situation where Hungary is requested to channel more of its taxpayers’ money to Ukraine as long as Hungary’s largest financial institution with 3 million household deposits stays on the list of 'international sponsors of war.' Everybody feels, everybody sees and everybody knows that this is nonsense, and until this nonsense is removed, we will refuse to discuss any financial issues," Szijjarto wrote on his page on Facebook (prohibited in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).

The same position was voiced on Wednesday by another senior Hungarian official, Defense Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said following a meeting of the bloc’s defense ministers in Toledo on August 30 that a fund with around 5 billion euros annually would be embedded into the European Peace Facility to provide military assistance to Ukraine in the period 2024-2027.

Budapest has long been demanding that Kiev remove OTP Bank from its blacklist and has asked EU leaders to put pressure on Ukraine. On May 4, Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) blacklisted Hungary’s OTP banking group due to its ongoing business operations in Russia. NACP also put dozens of other foreign companies on the list due to their presence in the Russian market.

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Foreign policy Hungary

Military operation in Ukraine

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