20 billion euros to support the Ukrainian army? Hungary has a condition

Budapest will oppose the creation of an EU military fund for Ukraine if Kiev does not remove the Hungarian bank from its list of “war sponsors”.

The case is reported by Politico, which estimates that “Hungary is proving to be the biggest obstacle in the EU’s attempt to establish a long-term fund of up to €20 billion to support the Ukrainian army.”

The plan to set up the fund first appeared on the agenda on Thursday at the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels. It indicated that the EU would allocate at least €5 billion a year for the next four years to cover the costs of EU countries buying and transferring arms to Ukraine and training Ukrainian armed forces.

“We Don’t Do It”

At the meeting, Hungary, which argued that Ukraine should lead to a cessation of fighting rather than fueling the conflict, said it would oppose the creation of the fund until Ukraine removed the controversial Hungarian OTP bank (the largest commercial bank operating in Hungary; after the February 24, 2022 aggression, the institution did not withdraw from the Russian market) from its list of “war sponsors”. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has announced that until then, his country will not allow more money to be transferred to the fund from which Brussels subsidizes arms deliveries to Ukraine. “We cannot negotiate a new financial commitment until the issue of our bank is resolved,” Szijjártó said on Thursday.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has pledged about €4 billion to a military fund. Officials want to establish a more consistent source of money to avoid having to constantly have difficult conversations about replenishing the budget. The push for a multi-year fund is part of a broader Western effort to provide Ukraine with more sustainable security guarantees. The discussion on this dominated the recent NATO summit in Lithuania.

Source: Do Rzeczy

\