Politico: The meeting of the German Foreign Minister and her Hungarian counterpart turned into a spat
Politico reported that the meeting between German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Hungarian counterpart Peter Sjärto ended in a quarrel over the issue of OTP Bank and aid to Ukraine.
According to the politico article wrote by journalist Jacopo Paregazzi: According to four diplomats, a quarrel occurred between Germany and Hungary during a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday over the role of a Hungarian bank in the conflict in Ukraine.
The German foreign minister criticized her Hungarian counterpart for refusing to agree to additional military aid from the European Union to Ukraine.
During that, Baerbock cited some unspecified reports about the Hungarian OTP Bank, accusing it of violating international law, however her Hungarian counterpart Peter Sjärto rejected these charges and described the report as incorrect.
On Monday, the Hungarian foreign minister said that his country would oppose the allocation of 500 million Euros from the European Peace Fund to arm Ukraine as long as the Kiev authorities insisted on including the Hungarian OTP Bank, in the list of sponsors of war.
Earlier, the Ukrainian National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption stated that it had included a Hungarian bank in this list, allegedly for providing preferential loans to the Russian military.
On May 12, Peter Sjärto called on Ukraine, during his participation in the ministerial meeting of the European Union, to remove OTP Bank from the list of international sponsors of the war, describing Ukrainian actions as unacceptable.
He warned that Hungary is in a difficult economic situation due to EU sanctions against Russia, and will find it difficult to help Ukraine while OTP Bank is blacklisted.
