We are talking about €0.5 billion from the European Peace Fund, from which EU countries have financed lethal weapons and protective equipment for Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
EU countries will put pressure on Budapest on Monday during a meeting of EU foreign ministers, writes RMF. So far, Hungary, which itself does not supply weapons to Ukraine, has abstained from voting on decisions on subsequent tranches of aid and has not blocked this support.
The Hungarian veto outrages EU diplomats because it has no other justification than that it favors Russia, the newspaper notes.
At the same time, the European Union may take a different path, the article says. When Hungary blocked €18bn of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine in early December, the EU passed a legal act that would have allowed this aid to be delivered around Hungary. This was enough for Hungary to give in, and in the end, 27 countries managed to accept the aid package.
The budget of the Peace Fund, the seventh tranche of which Hungary is blocking for armament for Ukraine, is €5.6 billion. This year it was increased by €2 billion in December, with the possibility of a further increase to almost €11 billion.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, Western countries have introduced several packages of sanctions against Russia. In the spring, Hungary blocked the sixth EU sanctions package, which includes a partial oil embargo, for several weeks. In the summer, representatives of the authorities of this country said that Hungary cannot refuse from Russian oil and that “it’s physically impossible.”
At the end of November, members of the European Parliament approved a macro-financial support package for Ukraine in 2023. The funds should be provided quarterly (€4.5 billion each) and cover about half of the needs of the Ukrainian state budget. On December 6, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga spoke out against changes to EU legislation that would allow Ukraine to provide €18 billion, Rikard Jozwiak, editor of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty on Europe, said. According to him, Hungary blocked the provision of assistance to Ukraine hoping to secure their own funding.
European Union cannot allow one state to block the provision of € 18 billion in macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, said the Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis. He noted that the European Commission has already outlined two possible options for resolving the issue – “guaranteeing loans can be from the EU budget or it can be guarantees from member states.”
December 10 modified package was approved by a unanimous decision of the Council of the European Unionwhich includes the heads of government of 27 countries.
November 24 The European Parliament called for a freeze on public funding The European Union of Hungary, including because of Budapest’s abuse of the principle of unanimity in decision-making in the EU to put pressure on the Russian Federation.
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