Borrell accuses Hungary of blocking EU military aid to Ukraine

Hungary does not agree with the texts of the EU legal acts, the adoption of which is necessary to provide Ukraine with military aid worth about 5 billion euros. Thus, the aid has been blocked because these legal acts must be adopted unanimously by all EU members, explained EU High Representative Josep Borrell.

This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to Ukrinform.

During a press conference following the EU Foreign Affairs Council, Borrell noted that, according to the agreement, at Budapest's insistence, no Hungarian contributions to the European Peace Fund will be spent on any military, even non-lethal, assistance to Ukraine. At the same time, decisions on the use of the fund's resources must be made by consensus.

In particular, according to Borrell, seven legal acts must be adopted to provide assistance to Ukraine. However, Hungary disagrees with the texts of the documents, so they are still under consideration, the diplomat said, adding that he did not want to speculate on the reasons for such actions by Budapest.

“These are seven legal texts that will allow mobilizing resources to provide military support to Ukraine. Everyone says that we do not fulfill our obligations, we do not do it on time. I have seven legal documents waiting to be adopted to mobilize about €5 billion of military support for Ukraine. This delay can be measured in human lives. This is not a financial problem, it is a problem of human lives,” Borrell emphasized.

He emphasized that any EU member may have legitimate reasons to disagree with something, but there should be an understanding of the weight of the issues that cannot be resolved at this time because of such disagreement.

“Now we will have another, additional legal act that we need to use the proceeds of frozen (Russian) assets and turn them into weapons. It will be presented to the Coreper (the EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives at the level of ambassadors - ed.) this week. I don't want to speculate on how this will happen, but the position of all member states is important. I asked them to please not block it. Because in return, we will have the proceeds from these assets, which we will carefully keep on our current accounts,” Borrell said.

He emphasized that it is unacceptable for EU military assistance to Ukraine “to be held hostage to another decision that has nothing to do with this specific issue, especially given the urgency of the situation.”

Poor, poor Borrell. All you can do is talk....

Author - Serhii Kolomiets, 28/05/2024