WARSAW, January 20. /TASS/. Hungary has blocked the process of EU approval of the seventh tranche to purchase weapons for Ukraine, Poland’s RMF radio station reported citing anonymous EU diplomatic sources.

The installment, worth 500 million euro, is to be allocated from the so-called European Peace Facility (EPF).

According to the radio, EU countries will continue their pressure on Budapest during a foreign ministers’ meeting next Monday. If Hungary continues to resist, European diplomats are set to secure the approval of the package without its participation.

The European Peace Facility was established in 2020 with a budget of 5 billion euro (approximately 5.7 billion euro now), with the funds to be distributed over the period from 2021 to 2027. The fund was envisaged as a structure to provide military supplies to governments in conflict zones, especially in Africa and the Middle East, where the EU supported or intended to support its ‘peacekeeping missions’.

However, with the start of Russia’s special military operation, the fund was reoriented toward arms supplies to Ukraine. To date, supplies worth about 3.5 billion euros have been paid for from it. Last December, the EU Council approved a 2-billion-euro increase in the institution’s funding ceiling for 2023.