Ukraine Continues “Witch-hunt” against Hungarian Companies

The witch-hunt against Hungarian companies in Ukraine has not ended with the OTP Bank case, as the country’s authorities intend to withdraw the local marketing authorization of dozens of Richter’s medicines, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Luxembourg on Monday.

Minister Szijjártó noted at a press conference during a break in the EU Foreign Affairs Council that “world war preparations” were underway in the EU in view of the increasingly critical situation in Ukraine, where Hungary is under enormous pressure that is expected to intensify in the coming months. As an example of this, he said that in addition to the EUR 500 million blocked by Hungary, another EUR 1.5 billion is to be provided to Member States for arms supplies to Ukraine from the European Peace Facility.

The Hungarian position remains unchanged and clear. Until we get a guarantee from the Ukrainian side that they will stop the witch-hunt against Hungarian companies active in Ukraine, we cannot agree to such decisions,”

he stressed.

He called the discrimination against Hungarian companies unacceptable, citing unfounded procedures and fictitious reasons, and recalled that Hungarian OTP Bank had previously been placed on the list of international sponsors of the war. He then pointed out that now, just when the matter seemed to have been resolved, Kiev wanted to withdraw the authorization of fourteen medicines marketed by Gedeon Richter Plc., a Hungarian pharmaceutical company.

Péter Sziijártó spoke of the same unfounded reasons for the proceedings against the largest Hungarian pharmaceutical company as in the case of the listing of the financial institution. “Richter has not violated any rules in Ukraine and has not in any way violated any sanction measures (…) The fact that they are operating in Russia is not in violation of any law. The pharmaceutical industry is not under any kind of sanctions,” he stressed.

He also mentioned that when they asked the Ukrainian government to remove OTP from this blacklist, they were told that this was a matter entirely independent of them, and later a government decision to remove the list somewhat “undermined” the credibility of the argument. The Minister considered that since the decision was political rather than professional, and the management and rules remained unchanged, there was a real risk of a similar action being repeated.

Therefore, we asked our Ukrainian colleagues to (…) come to Budapest, sit down and work out a solution, an agreement, which will provide us with a sufficient guarantee that this type of disadvantage will not happen again to Hungarian companies in Ukraine for purely political reasons,”

he said.

“So far the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency has not responded positively to the invitation, they have not come. We are still waiting for them in Budapest, our colleagues are ready, so it is not up to us whether such an agreement will be reached or not,” he added.

Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook