Hungary wants guarantees Ukraine will not place OTP Bank on list of war sponsors again

Hungary wants guarantees that Ukraine will not put the OTP Bank back on the list of international sponsors of war.

Source: Telex, independent Hungarian news outlet, quoting the statement of Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The foreign minister said that he invited representatives of the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to Budapest to discuss an agreement that would guarantee that OTP Bank would not be included on this list in the future.

Quote: "If a reassuring agreement is reached, then we will of course have to consider what steps this justifies on our part," said Szijjártó.

At the same time, he welcomed the removal of the bank from the list but claimed that this was a recognition on the part of Ukraine that the institution had been included on the list for "unfounded, false and ridiculous" reasons.

Szijjártó said that the NACP has a sanctions list that still includes the Russian subsidiary of OTP Bank and four bank executives.

"We expect these four OTP Bank managers and the Russian subsidiary to be removed from the NACP list," Szijjártó said.

Background: 

• Earlier, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention removed the Hungarian OTP Bank from the list of international sponsors of war in order to unblock half a billion euros from the EU military fund.
• The status of an international sponsor of war has been suspended for OTP Bank, as well as for five Greek shipping companies, whom Kyiv has accused of illegally transporting Russian oil, bypassing the price cap.
• In May, the Ukrainian National Agency on Corruption Prevention announced that it included OTP Bank on the list of sponsor of war because of the decision of the bank's management to continue operations in the Russian Federation and its de facto recognition of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
• The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, said that due to Ukraine's inclusion of the Hungarian OTP Bank on the list of sponsors of war, Budapest "will find it very difficult" to agree with the EU on new sanctions against Russia.

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