Hungary blocks EU aid for Ukraine amid row with Brussels
Hungary has vetoed an enormous aid package from the European Union (EU) to Ukraine, as it is involved in a tug-of-war with Brussels over billions of euros in frozen funds.
At an EU economics and finance ministers' meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, Budapest blocked $19 billion (18 billion euros) in financial support for Ukraine.
Hungarian Minister of Finance Mihaly Varga confirmed his government's opposition to the loan for Kiev.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is against taking on debt to bail out Kiev, but said earlier that Hungary would be willing to provide Ukraine with $152-$178 million from its own budget on bilateral terms — an amount he said would not fundamentally harm Hungary's national interests.
"We are not in favor of this because we do not want the European Union to become a community of indebted states," Orban said on Friday.
EU officials, however, accuse Orban of holding up the vote to pressure the bloc into unfreezing 13 billion euros of its funds held up due to graft and rule-of-law concerns under Orban.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs dismissed the claim, saying, "Hungary considers it a dangerous precedent that the payment of EU funds to Hungary is linked to other, completely unrelated issues."
"We refuse to make EU funds conditional on changing our position," he said.
Regarding the aid package to Ukraine, the chairman of the ministerial meeting said the EU would now try to find a way for the other 26 member states to bypass Hungary's opposition and get the financial support to Kiev.
"We will not be discouraged. Our ambition remains that we'll start the disbursement of our aid to Ukraine in January," said the Czech Republic's Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura.
Getting the funds to Ukraine without Budapest's approval could take longer.
Hungary is also vetoing a longstanding push for an EU-wide minimum corporate tax, a proposal that requires unanimous support from the bloc's members.
Orban’'s government has also delayed the ratification of Sweden and Finland's bids to join NATO. It is the only member of the 30-member military alliance besides Turkey not to have voted for approval.
Budapest has also opposed the EU's sanction policy against Russia.
The bloc has slapped several rounds of bans on Moscow since Russia started a military campaign in Ukraine in February.
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