BUDAPEST, October 4. /TASS/. Hungary is demanding that the Ukrainian authorities lift sanctions from the Russian branch of OTP Bank and four Hungarian senior executives, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at a press conference following a meeting with Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Dumitru Alaiba in Budapest.
The top Hungarian diplomat noted that the decision by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to exclude Hungary-based OTP Bank from the list of "international sponsors of war" is a step in the right direction. However, he pointed out that the NACP continues to maintain a sanctions list that still includes OTP Bank’s branch in Russia as well as the names of four Hungarian bank executives. "We expect that these four OTP executives and the Russian organization will be removed from the list of the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency," Szijjarto stressed.
He said that, today, the Ukrainian envoy to Hungary was handed a request for a NACP delegation to come to Budapest as soon as possible to discuss the issue. Hungary would also like to obtain guarantees that its companies will not be blacklisted by Ukraine without legitimate grounds. "If a reassuring agreement is reached on these issues, we, of course, will be compelled to consider the steps that we can take on our part," the Hungarian foreign minister added.
On September 29, the NACP announced that it was suspending the designation of Hungary’s OTP Bank as an "international sponsor of war," which had been applied to the financial institution due to its operations in the Russian financial services market. The NACP expressed hope that this decision would compel Hungary to unblock an installment of EU military aid to Ukraine worth 500 mln euros, but the Hungarian government said these were only partial, insufficient measures. Only after this latter comment, the NACP finally took action to strike OTP Bank from the sanctions list.
OTP, Hungary’s largest bank with over 3 mln customers, was included in the list this spring. Earlier, Szijjarto cautioned that until its removal from the list, Hungary would not even discuss the blocked EU military aid to Ukraine. Due to Budapest’s position on the matter, the EU was unable to proceed with providing the next installment of military aid worth 500 mln euros to the Kiev regime at a meeting of EU defense ministers in Toledo, Spain, in late August.