The Prime Minister said that a peace agreement is needed which guarantees the security of Hungary and, through it, of Europeans.Continue reading
The Hungarian government is not in favor of the European Union spending billions of euros on prolonging the war in Ukraine, while the hope for peace is stronger than ever, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Monday.
Speaking at a press conference after the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, the Minister said that the EU’s policy on the war in Ukraine had been a serious failure in recent years, and that sanctions seemed to have been more of a “self-goal,” with arms transfers leading to more victims. “The only way to prevent further tragedies is peace, and sooner rather than later. The later peace comes, the more people will die, the greater the destruction, and the greater the risk of war escalation,” he warned.
“All our hope now lies in the US-Russian negotiations,” Péter Szijjártó underlined. “Unfortunately, however, I was also convinced today that pro-war European liberals do not want the US-Russian negotiations to succeed,” he continued. He added that the meeting had shown him that they were conspiring to prevent it. “They are saying openly and clearly that they want to put together a big package of money and arms that will allow Ukraine to say no to a deal that someone has called bad,” he pointed out.
He also said that
between 20 and 40 billion euros were discussed at the recent meeting, meaning that “the European Union would have to put extra into Ukraine, and there are plans for an incredible amount of arms.”
Hungary will not support spending more EU billions to prolong the war in Ukraine, especially as the hope for peace is stronger than ever, said Péter Szijjártó in Brussels. He condemned pro-war European liberals for pushing massive funding and arms shipments to block peace… pic.twitter.com/Ws1Zpx1O2O
— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) February 24, 2025
The Foreign Minister underlined that the Hungarian government does not support the newly proposed package, “while today the hope for peace is stronger than ever.”
Therefore we will not agree to any of these types of actions, we will vote against all of them. And we will also vote no to any initiative that jeopardizes the success of the ongoing US-Russian negotiations,”
he stressed.
The Minister also pointed out that a decision on the six-month extension of the sanctions, that mainly concern Russian and Belarusian individuals, will have to be taken by March 10, and the Hungarian government’s vote will be strongly influenced by the way the European Commission keeps its earlier promises.
He recalled that the Brussels body had recently given four guarantees that Hungary’s energy supply to Ukraine would be secure, “one of which had already been broken.” He complained that, although they had undertaken to negotiate the resumption of gas transit through Ukraine with the involvement of Hungary, the first such meeting had taken place last week without the Hungarian side being invited.
If this continues, it will have a very serious impact on our vote by March 10,”
he warned.
“Already today they tried to push through the roll-over of the sanctions on persons. We have clearly rejected this, there is nowhere to run, the deadline is March 10, US-Russian talks are ongoing, nothing should be done to jeopardize their success,” the Foreign Minister noted.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter