The Hungarian government announced on Thursday that it will continue to oppose European financing of arms supplies to Ukraine, as long as the latter leaves the Hungarian bank OTP on the list of organizations that have been sanctioned for supporting Russia, EFE and MTI agencies report.

Speaking to the press during the break of the meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, the head of Hungarian diplomacy, Peter Szijjártó, said that Hungary will receive a financial contribution of about 200 million euros from the 20 billion euros that the EU intends to allocate to them in the next four years (5 billion euros per year in the period 2024-2027) for military aid offered to Ukraine, reports Agerpres.

The High Representative of the EU for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said that at this meeting he will present to the ministers a proposal to increase the contributions of the EU states intended to finance weapons, ammunition and other military expenses for Ukraine. He did not give figures, but European sources put forward a figure of 20 billion euros for the next four years, as did Hungary’s foreign minister.

The latter said he does not support such a plan, which he believes shows the EU is preparing for at least four more years of war, after the EU bloc has already spent 5.6 billion euros on military aid to Ukraine through a fund called “European peace”. Facility” and a €500 million plan to stimulate European military production, especially the 155 mm caliber shells needed by Ukraine, was approved at a meeting of ministers on Thursday.

“We do not want to negotiate either the 500 million euros blocked so far (by Hungary), nor the 20 billion offered now, as long as the OTP is on the list of international sponsors of the war,” Szijjarto said. It is not clear how he voted on the €500 million plan, which was approved on Thursday at a meeting of European foreign ministers in which he attended.

“Not to mention the fact that the European Commission recently admitted that it has no more money and asked for another 50 billion euros to support Ukraine,” added Sijarto, referring to a request sent by the European Commission to EU states last month: and adds contributions to the multi-year budget. “Now they are asking for another 20 billion euros for arms supplies, so we are talking about 70 billion euros, without any financial report or audit showing how this money has been spent so far,” the Hungarian minister noted.

He complained that if about a hundred large Western companies paid taxes to the Russian state in the amount of about 3.5 billion dollars last year, then the Hungarian bank OTP Ukraine considers it a sponsor of the war started by Russia, although it has only 0 market share in this country. 16%.

Read also: Hungary will not accept EU funding until Ukraine excludes OTP bank from the blacklist of war sponsors

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