The longer the Russo-Ukrainian war goes on, the closer we could be to a third world war, Péter Szijjártó warned.Continue reading
The five-billion-euro expansion of the European Peace Facility (EPF) has been approved with the constructive abstention of the government, resulting in Hungary no longer expected to bear any political or financial burden from arms transfers to Ukraine, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Monday.
At a press conference held during the break of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, the politician highlighted that the participants had finally agreed to increase the budget of the EPF, with Hungary’s constructive abstention, at the cost of a rule change under which Hungary will not have to bear any burden from financing arms transfers.
This means that we will have to pay EUR 50 million, but we can decide how it will be used,”
he said.
In addition, the Foreign Affairs Council decided to improve the governance arrangements for the EPF in order to make it more sustainable and adapt it to the new international context. The improved governance arrangements will build on new national procurement structures and existing framework contracts. These will include joint procurement of the necessary defense equipment from the European defense industry and Norway, as well as from operators with production facilities or production sites outside the EU or Norway.
Péter Szijjártó regretted that there was still no recognition of the fact that the EU’s strategy towards Ukraine had “failed.” The reason for this, he said at the press conference, is that it could raise the question of political responsibility for the damage Europe has suffered that no one wants to accept. He also touched on statements made by some European leaders in recent weeks that the sending of European troops to Ukraine should not be rejected. “These are extremely dangerous and alarming statements, and we, who live in the neighborhood of war, respectfully ask our Western European colleagues to stop making such statements, because
in the current extremely tense situation of war, not only actions but also words have enormous weight and significance,”
he warned.
He said that although it was not a NATO meeting, given that most EU members were also in the North Atlantic alliance and that the U.S. Secretary of State had joined at one point, he reminded his colleagues of the military organization’s earlier unanimous decision to do everything possible to avoid direct confrontation with Russia.
Minister Szijjártó also pointed out that as a neighbor of Ukraine, Hungary is directly confronted with all the negative consequences of the war. In addition to the flood of refugees, for instance, agriculture “was almost destroyed by the poor quality Ukrainian grain flooding Central Europe.” He noted that due to the blockades in Poland, a significant amount of road freight traffic between Ukraine and the EU has now shifted to the short Hungarian-Ukrainian border, where it has significantly increased the burden and the waiting time.
He announced that in order to ease the pressure, he had reached an agreement over the weekend with Andriy Yermak, head of the Kiev presidential office, to sign a contract soon to create a new border crossing between the two countries, between Nagyhódos and Velyka Palad’ (Nagypalád), and to upgrade the Beregsurány border crossing.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter