Hungary reacts to EU aid plan for Kiev

Hungary has rejected an EU loan scheme set to provide €18 billion ($18.1 billion) in stable financial aid to Ukraine next year.

Finance Minister Mihaly Varga was quoted by the media as saying on Tuesday that Budapest has had “bad experience” with joint EU loans and still has not received enough aid regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Bloomberg, Varga told his colleagues at a meeting in Brussels that Budapest will not back the idea to use the EU budget in order to offer concessional loans to Kiev. The measure needs the approval of all the bloc’s 27 member states.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that his country will not stop helping Kiev, but will also not greenlight a bloc-wide borrowing plan. “We are ready to continue financial support on a bilateral basis,” Szijjarto said. “But we will certainly not support any kind of joint EU borrowing in this field.”