Hungary blocked the allocation of 18 billion euros of financial assistance to Ukraine

Hungary did not support amendments to the EU financial legislation, which would allow the allocation of 18 billion euros of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine in 2023, Minister of Finance Mihaly Varga said during the open part of the meeting of the Economic and Financial Council in Brussels.

“Hungary is against an amendment to the financial legislation,” he said (cit. by Interfax).

Czech Finance Minister Zbigniew Stanyura, who chaired the meeting, said that Hungary’s refusal “will not dampen our ambitions to start allocating our assistance to Ukraine from the beginning of January.” He turned to the committee on economics and finance with a request to find an alternative solution. “This means that we must find a solution that all states will support. We will find a solution to support Ukraine,” he commented on the decision of Hungary.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban 18 November spokethat Budapest will not support the EU plan to provide a new financial assistance package to Kyiv in its current form. Instead of a pan-European loan, the Hungarian prime minister suggested distributing the total amount that is planned to be allocated to Ukraine between the EU countries “proportionately and fairly”. In particular, the Prime Minister noted that Hungary is ready to allocate about 14 million euros from its budget to Ukraine annually, such an amount will not harm the national interests of the country.

24 November Hungarian government approved allocation of financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 187 million euros next year as part of the EU decision to provide Ukraine with loans in 2023 for economic recovery.

Then, at the end of November, the European Parliament approved allocation of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine for 18 billion euros. According to the head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, this happened in record time.

The EU intends to disburse most of the promised financial assistance to Ukraine in 2023 in the amount of 18 billion euros in the form of loans with a 10-year grace period, which is planned to be repaid quarterly. It is expected that the amount of 18 billion euros of loans and grants should cover about half of the Ukrainian budget deficit in 2023.

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