The Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) announced on Friday that OTP Bank now has no difficulties with Ukraine, Politico reported.
Analysts are of the opinion that this was aimed at securing Budapest’s latest military aid package to Ukraine.
“The agency hopes that this decision will lead to Hungary’s unblocking of €500 million of vital EU military aid for the Ukrainian people,” the agency said.
The statement said the decision gained an unexpected resolution through negotiations with the bank and officials in Budapest. One of the conditions is that the bank must stop co-operating with Russia.
Budapest previously expressed the view that it would oppose any military aid to Ukraine if the bank was treated accordingly. Here’s what Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said about it in July:
We cannot negotiate about new financial [European Peace Facility] commitment before OTP is solved.
The NACP also renewed relations with Dynacom Tankers Management, Delta Tankers, Thenamaris Ships Management, Minerva Marine, and TMC Tankers. The agency sincerely hopes that such a gesture will “eliminate the possibility of Greece blocking the future EU sanctions package aimed at reducing Russia’s ability to continue the war”.
On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressed some doubts about Ukraine joining the EU: “We don’t know how big the territory of this country is, as the war is still on going, we don’t know how big its population is as they are fleeing”.
