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Ukraine’s removal of OTP Bank from the list of international sponsors of the war is a step in the right direction, but the government wants assurances that the financial institution will not be returned to the list in the future, stressed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó. Therefore, he invited representatives of the Ukrainian National Agency of Corruption Prevention (NACP) to Budapest.
The minister welcomed the removal of the Hungarian OTP Bank from the blacklist, but said that this was a virtual admission that the bank had been included on the list for “unfounded, false, and ridiculous” reasons. He called the reason that OTP was a major player in Russia’s banking system unfounded, as its market share is only 0.17 percent. As for the allegation that OTP is operating in Donetsk, when it does have a branch in a Russian town of a similar name, hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border, he said that it was “rather ridiculous.”
At the same time, Péter Szijjártó noted that the listing of the bank itself is a cause for concern, as this could happen at any time in the future.
Therefore, today we have communicated our request to the Ukrainian ambassador in Budapest that a delegation of the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency should come to Budapest as soon as possible, so that we can negotiate an agreement that guarantees that such a decision will not be made in the future, and that OTP will not be arbitrarily included on this list on the basis of ridiculous grounds,”
he said.
“If a reassuring agreement is reached there, then we will of course have to consider what steps this justifies on our part,” the Minister added.
Szijjártó then mentioned that the NACP has a list submitted for sanctions too, still containing the Russian entity of OTP and four Hungarian bank executives. “We expect these four OTP managers and the Russian entity to be removed from the list of the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency,” he said.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/OTP Bank