The European Union crossed a red line by prohibiting Hungary from voting on the use of the proceeds from frozen Russian bank accounts, said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó on Monday.
Speaking during a break in the meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, the Hungarian minister said an additional €1.4 billion from the European Peace Facility would be used for arms transfers to Ukraine, despite Hungary’s disagreement.
“This €1.4 billion is effectively the amount of the proceeds of the seized or frozen Russian assets, and since Hungary abstained in the first vote on their use, the Council’s legal service, Brussels, the bureaucrats, and some member states considered that this was a sufficient basis for ignoring Hungary’s right to decide, and so they decided to use €1.4 billion from the European Peace Facility to finance new arms shipments to Ukraine, ignoring Hungary’s position,” he said.
“This is a clear red line. Never before has such a shameless breach and disregard of common European rules been shown. Moreover, it is precisely those who are pushing for the rule of law procedures at full volume and talking about the endangerment of democratic values who are breaking European rules,” he continued.
“The self-proclaimed warriors of democracy and the rule of law have now flouted the rules in the most shameless way possible by excluding Hungary from this decision. So the pro-war fervor has effectively blinded the decision-makers,” he added.
Szijjártó underlined that the EU clearly wants to continue crossing red lines, as evidenced by the fact that High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has this time come up with a proposal to allow the training of Ukrainian soldiers by European troops on Ukrainian territory.
“This is an extremely dangerous proposal. It is a proposal that would cross another red line. We remember the statements of leading Western European politicians during the European Parliament election campaign that European soldiers could and should be stationed, deployed, and sent to Ukraine. And here is the first step,” he said.
“They want to send military trainers to Ukraine. This is unacceptable to us, and we are protesting against it with all means at our disposal because the deployment of EU trainers in Ukraine would create another extremely serious risk of further escalation of the war,” he warned.
