US EditionHungary protests 'unlawful' step by EU to freeze Russian assets, Orban says
The EU used Article 122 to allow qualified-majority approval to freeze €210 billion of Russian assets, enabling a €165 billion reparations loan for Ukraine despite opposition from Hungary and Slovakia.
- On Friday, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán denounced the EU move to permanently freeze €210 billion in Russian sovereign assets, calling it `clearly unlawful` and warning it will `cause irreparable damage`.
- The European Commission invoked Article 122 to let 15 countries representing 65% of the bloc’s population freeze Russian assets permanently, replacing six‑monthly unanimous renewals with qualified majority.
- Under Ursula von der Leyen, the measure includes €25 billion from private accounts and €140 billion held in Euroclear bank in Belgium, with €115 billion for defence.
- Removing unanimity has immediate political consequences as Belgium and Hungary oppose the plan, Belgium fears liabilities and is expected to abstain while Hungary and Slovakia will vote against it.
- Legal advisers and Belgium’s prime minister warn that Article 122 was used for Covid‑19 and argue the assets `have nothing to do with the economic situation of EU member states`, critics counter, while the Commission says the measures are justified.
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59 Articles
The Hungarian government accused the European Union (EU) on Monday of committing a "war provocation" by deciding to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, an approved measure with emergency powers that, according to Budapest, violates Community rules and could bring the war closer to Europe, according to EFE. "The freezing of Russian assets and their use (to support Ukraine) is a war provocation of a gravity not seen in the last two or th…
Hungary protests 'unlawful' step by EU to freeze Russian assets, Orban says
Hungary protests against what it calls an "unlawful" step planned by European Union governments to freeze Russian assets indefinitely using a qualified majority vote, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a Facebook post on Friday.
The body argues that Euroclear's decisions "made damage to the BCR due to the inability to manage the cash and the values belonging to it"
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó engaged in a public war of words on the joint media platform X over the issue of frozen assets in Ukraine and Russia.
The heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland and Hungary argued publicly about Orban's declarations about the assets.
The statement in which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticised the EU's decision to freeze Russia's assets has led to an exchange of replies from the distance between foreign ministers from Budapest...
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