BUDAPEST, March 18. /TASS/. The European Union has decided to increase funding for the European Peace Facility by 5 bln euros to provide military aid to Ukraine, but Budapest will not join other EU members in allocating funds for this purpose, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said during a break in an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.
He pointed out that the event was marked by a belligerent atmosphere as the meeting’s participants "made a final decision to increase the so-called European Peace Facility by 5 bln euros, which can be used to pay for European Union countries’ weapons supplies to Ukraine." Hungary abstained when the decision was made and "will have neither political nor financial obligations" with regard to the support fund, Szijjarto noted.
"It means that we will have to pay the required 50 mln euros but we will be able to decide for ourselves what we would like to do with the money," the top diplomat noted. He explained that Hungary’s contribution could be spent, in particular, on strengthening stability and security in the Western Balkans.
Hungary said in early February that it would not veto the move to increase funding for the European Peace Facility but would not allocate funds for weapons supplies to Ukraine. Budapest sees weapons supplies as a redline, Szijjarto said then.
The European Peace Facility was established in 2021 to fund the EU’s defense and security efforts, including peacekeeping operations. However, after a conflict broke out in Ukraine, the EU began to use the mechanism to offset member states’ spending on weapons supplies to Kiev.