Our country supported the region even before the war - pointed out the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Hungary is ready to continue providing financial support to Ukraine on a bilateral basis, but will by no means agree to another joint European Union loan for this purpose, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said in Sofia on Monday.
At the Central European Initiative's meeting of foreign ministers in Bulgaria, the minister welcomed the fact that the EU is preparing a new support package for Kyiv, but added that Hungary has been helping neighboring Ukraine in various ways for a long time, with those who now "present themselves as the country's best friends". .
In his speech, he pointed out that the government spent tens and hundreds of millions of euros to support health care, education, cultural institutions and churches in Ukraine, and our country had already taken its share of aid even before the outbreak of the war.
"We are ready to continue financial support on a bilateral basis, based on a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Hungary. But we will certainly not support any kind of common European Union borrowing in this area," he said.
"Why? Because we did it once. We supported joint borrowing during the coronavirus epidemic, but this was more than enough," he said.
The European Commission is proposing a monthly financial support package of 1.5 billion euros to cover Ukraine's financing needs next year, and the legislative initiative is expected to be presented this week.
Péter Szijjártó subsequently affected the sanctions responses to the war. He believed that the exact opposite of what was promised when the restrictions were ordered happened, as the war became increasingly brutal and the European economy instead of the Russian one was brought to its knees.
The latter is well exemplified by the fact that Hungary spent seven billion euros on energy imports last year, while this year it was 19 billion euros, and if everything continues like this, it will receive 29 billion euros next year, he emphasized.
"We have to understand that these responses have fundamentally failed. The European economy is suffering, and it is also clear who benefits from this situation," he said.
He stated: the government will not let the Hungarians pay the price of the war in Ukraine, and the only solution is peace, which, unfortunately, few people talk about.
Finally, the minister also spoke about the waves of migration hitting the Central European region, calling them a significant security challenge. He emphasized: Hungary is under double pressure, as it has already received one million refugees from Ukraine and provides care for those who wish to stay, so Ukrainian children have started the school year in roughly 1,300 schools and kindergartens. In the meantime, however, the southern border is under siege without any exaggeration, the authorities have prevented around 230,000 illegal border crossing attempts there this year alone.
As he said, the latter numbers are similar to those experienced during the migration crisis of 2015, in addition, some arrivals attacked each other and the border guards with weapons. According to his words, the situation is also complicated by the fact that instead of supporting border protection, Brussels continues to use a "hypocritical approach", encouraging immigrants to head for Europe, thus also helping to maintain the business model of people smugglers, which is unacceptable.
Source: magyarhirlap.hu
Photo: MTI/EPA/Pool/John Thys
