BUDAPEST, October 14. /TASS/. EU states will now be given the choice of whether or not to contribute to the European Peace Facility to provide military aid to Ukraine, and Hungary will stick to its guns and abstain, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
According to him, at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell suggested that EU members voluntarily contribute to the European Peace Facility to cover the costs of arms supplies to Ukraine, as Hungary continues to block the allocation of financial tranches from this fund. "I would like to humbly note that we have been insisting on this for several years," Szijjarto told Hungarian reporters after a meeting with his European counterparts. According to him, "it will now be impossible to accuse Hungary of not making payments to the European Peace Facility."
In recent months, Hungary has blocked the allocation of 6.5 billion euros from the European Peace Facility to help Ukraine because the country's authorities are not convinced that Hungarian companies will be kept off its list of "international sponsors of war." Hungary's largest Hungarian bank OTP was once on the Ukrainian blacklist and then removed from it, but Hungary still has concerns that such incidents will be repeated. Budapest demanded guarantees from Kiev that such a situation would not arise again, but its demands were not met.
Szijjarto also said that Hungary is against sending Western military instructors to Ukraine to train the Ukrainian army. According to him, Hungary continues to be pressured to agree to sending military advisers from the EU to Ukraine to train Ukrainian servicemen. "This may contribute to the escalation of hostilities and deepening of the conflict between the European Union and Russia," the top diplomat said.
According to him, Hungary did not prevent the EU from training Ukrainian soldiers on European territory, but sending Western instructors to Ukraine "goes beyond what is acceptable." "We consider this very dangerous, so we cannot support it," the Hungarian foreign minister said. He reiterated that Hungary remains opposed to arms deliveries to Ukraine and the allocation of funds for this purpose because it fears an escalation of the conflict, which could lead to a direct clash between Western countries and Russia.