The Hungarian government has refused to contribute 6.5 billion euros of compensation to European Union member states that have shipped arms to Ukraine, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in Brussels on Monday.
Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council that Hungary raised the sole veto to the payment of approximately 6.5 billion euros from the European Peace Facility to member states that have supplied weapons to Ukraine, thereby withholding around 77 million euros of Hungarian money. He added that neither Hungary supplied weapons nor contributed to the arms shipment. But if the other EU member states “want to do so voluntarily, Hungary will not stand in their way”, he said.
He added that Hungary will not give a nod to relocating an EU training mission coordination unit to Kyiv or the deployment of EU advisors to Kyiv to coordinate the reform of the Ukrainian security sector. Szijjártó said deploying people to Kyiv for the purposes of training, coordination, and advice as part of an EU program was “extremely risky” and risked escalation. Regarding the 15th sanctions package against Russia, which allows Hungarian oil and gas company MOL to export products derived from Russian crude oil, the minister called the exemption “important”. “As we managed to strip out the crazy ideas … we did not veto it in the end,” he said. Commenting on the attempt to put Patriarch Kirill on the sanctions list, he said punishing church leaders “should be avoided at all costs”, adding that all hopes for peace would be lost if lines of communication involving churches were cut.
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Also, he said the EU had tried to put Russia’s UN ambassador on the list, “which is strange as the UN is the last port of call for political consultations…” “We vetoed this and also signaled that we won’t at all support the sanctioning of the Russian Olympic Committee. Mixing sports and politics … is unacceptable.” Szijjártó said a new reality had emerged in the war in Ukraine owing to the election win of Donald Trump and to Russian military victories on the battlefield. Far from being “Putinist propaganda,” he added that even his Ukrainian counterpart had confirmed the facts on the ground. He said that, “sadly”, this new state of affairs had been ignored in Brussels as most EU member states were still pushing a “failed war strategy” and feeding the risk of escalation. Regarding a Christmas truce, he said no one at today’s council meeting had backed a ceasefire “that would save lives”. He added that some at the meeting had even spoken against the proposal of a truce. Szijjártó called his Polish counterpart’s suggestion that Ukrainian men of military age living in the EU should have their social support withdrawn “harsh”.
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The billion euros from the EU that Hungary is about to lose on Jan 1st should be handed directly to Ukraine for its’ defence along with every subsequent amount Hungary ends up forfiting up to the entire 20 billion euros.