Decisions that undermine the rights of the Hungarian national community will make it difficult for Hungary in the future to make decisions that mean sacrifices for the sake of supporting Ukraine, said on Monday in Brussels the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Hungary Peter Sijarto, MTI reports.

At the press conference held during the break of the meeting of the EU Council on Foreign Affairs, the head of Hungarian diplomacy said that the main topic this time was the war in Ukraine. “I see that, despite the beginning of a new year, the attitude towards war does not change and the same atmosphere of war prevails,” Sijarto said.

As an example, the Hungarian minister mentioned that the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, suggested that the bloc allocate an additional 500 million euros from the European Peace Fund to finance the supply of weapons to Ukraine and contribute 45 million euros. to the activities of the training mission of the Ukrainian army.

“Our position is clear: peace is needed as soon as possible. (…) The farther a person is geographically from Ukraine, the less he directly feels the consequences of the war, therefore, the less commitment there may be to achieving peace as soon as possible,” said Peter Sijarto.

“Any decision that could lead to the continuation or potential escalation of the war is against our interests, so we do not consider it a good idea to increase the supply of weapons, but at the same time we do not prevent the implementation of the decision of the European Union on this matter,” said the Hungarian official.

Peter Szijártó also spoke about “concentrated and serious attacks” on the Hungarian national community in Ukraine.

Hungary’s foreign minister said: “It is unacceptable that school principals and teachers of Hungarian nationality are suddenly fired in large numbers, without any justification, and that institutions are forced to remove Hungarian national symbols.” “All these are signs of a serious, concentrated anti-Hungarian attack,” the politician warned.

“All this is unacceptable, and in this sense measures should be taken not only by us, Hungarians, but also by the European Union. It is inadmissible to claim that this is a two-sided issue,” Sijarto added.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary emphasized that as a candidate country for joining the EU, Ukraine must respect the rules of the community, and ensuring the rights of national minorities is a common value and duty.

The minister emphasized that it is expected that the situation of national communities in Ukraine will improve during the accession negotiations. However, the rules passed in December make the situation even worse, and together with the serious legal attacks that are taking place, cause serious concern. According to the Hungarian politician, it is necessary to return the laws that were in force in 2015.

“Concentrated attacks against Hungarians and anti-Hungarian measures will make it difficult for Hungary to make decisions in the near future that involve sacrifices for the sake of supporting Ukraine,” said Peter Szijártó.

(source: news.ro)

“Therefore, we expect Ukraine to respect the rights of the Hungarian national community, (…) and we also expect the European Union to act in this sense,” the minister added.

On Monday, the European Union allocated 500 million euros to Ukraine for the supply of weapons and 45 million euros for the training of the Ukrainian military in the EU. At a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign ministers agreed to unblock these two lines of funding from the European Peace Fund and spoke via video conference with their Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

This amounts to 3.6 billion euros in military financial aid given to Ukraine through the European Peace Fund (EPF), to which is added bilateral funding from member states, about which not everyone communicates.