The foreign minister said that while the Hungarian government backs fresh European Union support of 500 million euros for the Ukrainian army, Hungary is maintaining its policy of refusing to supply arms to Ukraine.
Attending a meeting of the foreign ministers of the C5 format of the central European countries — Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia — Péter Szijjártó said afterwards that Hungary supported Ukraine’s sovereignty, and he also noted that more than 600,000 refugees have so far arrived in Hungary from Ukraine. The Hungarian authorities are providing care and accommodation, as well as work and education for those in need, he said, adding that the government had implemented Hungary’s largest ever humanitarian aid operation. “We’re doing all this, even though the European Union is withholding funds from Hungary for purely political reasons,” he said. The government, he added, has backed all five EU sanctions packages so far, but Hungary’s energy security was a “red line”. Hungary will not vote for any curbs on Russian oil and gas imports, he said.
“We have worked hard towards diversification and we’ll carry on with this, but must ensure supplies are guaranteed in the meantime,” he said. Referring to the recent general election, he said the Hungarian electorate had expressed their desire to live in peace and security and to keep Hungary out of the war. Accordingly, Hungary will stick to its position of not supplying arms to Ukraine, he said. “We understand that other countries have decided otherwise, and we respect that — we haven’t even commented — but we expect our decision to be respected,” the minister said. The meeting was also attended by Alexander Schallenberg of Austria, Jan Lipavský of the Czech Republic, Ivan Korčok of Slovakia and Anže Logar of Slovenia.
Photo credit: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter