Hungary blocks the newest EU sanctions package against Russia

But Hungary is not alone in that regard because Budapest won an unlikely ally in Athens. Politico wrote that the new EU sanctions against Russia are “stuck in limbo over Greek-Hungary protest.”

Five EU diplomats shared information about the latest sanctions and the Hungarian-Greek opposition to the paper. The 11th sanctions package is the first member of a new generation of sanctions. It concerns countries helping Moscow reach its war efforts in Ukraine or avoid the other ten trade sanction packages.

However, Hungary and Greece will baulk that process if Ukraine does not remove their companies from the list of war sponsors. In the case of Hungary, that is the OTP Bank, the biggest Hungarian-owned financial institution and leading bank in Central Europe. Athens and Budapest will use the new sanctions package as political leverage “to get their companies off Ukraine’s list.”

That is why the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock criticised her Hungarian counterpart in a summit of foreign ministers this week in Brussels. She said OTP Bank supported Putin’s war efforts by, e.g. giving loans to the soldiers. The German FM cited unspecified reports, but Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, rejected the claims by quoting an OTP announcement. We wrote about that clash in THIS article. At a Wednesday meeting of EU ambassadors, however, Greece was at the forefront of resistance.