At the end of the day, the reparations loan would also take European taxpayers' money to Ukraine – Szijjártó

"Madness has taken over here, in Brussels,"

Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Thursday. The Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade was meeting with his colleagues from the other member states at the Council of the European Union.

During a break in the meeting, he called it one of the most serious corruption scandals in European political history that, according to suspicions of two Ukrainian anti- corruption agencies operating in part due to EU pressure, the country’s former energy minister was involved in running a network that took a 10-15 percent cut from companies managing nuclear power plants.

According to Szijjártó, in spite of this, "a motion was made at the meeting to send even more money" to run the country and its army. He also called it crazy that some of his colleagues believed that corruption ought to be prevented by Ukraine's EU membership.

Most "European politicians" had "made it clear that they were interested in undermining the European peace process," he said. In his view, "European politicians still do not want peace and will do everything they can to prevent a peace agreement from being reached" – he said, using the third person plural. Donald Trump's peace efforts should be supported immediately and unconditionally, but "politicians in Brussels are committed" to "undermining and hacking" them. Szijjártó considered it a lie that Europe's security depended on Ukraine.

He demanded that Ukraine give an account of the subsidies, "of how much money the Ukrainian war mafia took from European taxpayers," and added that a "Brussels puppet government" would immediately agree to allow a "corrupt regime" to “operate unhindered.”

26 out of 27 member states requested options

“Russia must pay”

– European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September when she proposed a compensation loan using Russian assets. The plan would effectively transfer the assets to Ukraine without confiscating them, but Ukraine would only have to repay them after Russia has paid compensation.

However, at their last meeting in October, the heads of state and government tried in vain to reach an agreement on this. Instead, they asked the European Commission for a list of options.

Spokespersons for the body confirmed that the letter was sent to the heads of state and government on Monday. Its exact content is not public, but it was also announced on Tuesday that, in addition to the compensation loan using Russian assets, two other options were detailed: one based on member state support and the other on joint borrowing.

"You've clearly seen the letter," chief spokesperson Paula Pinho said in response to a journalist's question, who claimed that the first option involved €90 billion, while no amount was specified for the second, although Pinho did not want to confirm this directly. She did however indicate that they would like to be in a position to accept one of the options at the December meeting of heads of state and government.

The summits are not prepared at the foreign ministers' meetings, but at the meetings of the EU affairs ministers. Their most recent meeting was on Monday, and János Bóka confirmed the previous position that the Hungarian government does not want to assume any financial or legal responsibility.

At the last EU summit, the deal was not primarily down to Viktor Orbán's partial absence, because as usual, the 26 ministers issued conclusions on Ukraine without him. Although they stated their commitment to supporting Ukraine, instead of supporting the compensation loan, they only got as far as requesting options.

This past week, instead of convincing Orbán, Von der Leyen tried to personally convince Bart de Wever, the Belgian prime minister, about the plan to use the original Russian assets. The headquarters of Euroclear, which originally managed a significant portion of the frozen Russian central bank assets, is located in Belgium, and after the most recent EU summit, the head of the country's government emphasized that it would be "absolute madness" for the Belgian taxpayers to be solely responsible for such a decision. When asked about the meeting on Tuesday, Pinho declined to provide any information.

According to Szijjártó, "at the end of the day," all three plans would take European taxpayers' money to Ukraine

Despite all this, at his press conference, Szijjártó insisted that all three options "have one thing in common: at the end of the day, they would all take European people's money to Ukraine. One may come up with different methods and use magic words: frozen assets, joint loans, I don't even know what. The point is that President Von der Leyen has put three proposals on the table" all of which would at the end of the day take European people's money to Ukraine, and this is of course unacceptable" for the Hungarian government.

When asked whether a unanimous or a qualified majority is required (in the latter case, depending on the population, at least four member states' governments are needed for a blocking minority), he said that there are different methods for adopting them. As far as voluntary contributions go, anyone can contribute as much as they want, but unanimity is required for joint loans "or even other types of joint financial action," "at least according to the rules."

"The Belgians are under intense pressure to "seize frozen Russian assets – expropriate them, nationalize them, or whatever we want to call it," Szijjártó claimed. This makes them "nervous, because they know full well that this is not only legally dangerous due to the specifics of the case, but would also provide a certificate on the security of the Belgian economy that may not be beneficial in the long run and could, for example, seriously undermine international financial and investor confidence." He however, added that those who argued at the foreign ministers’ informal meeting at the end of August that "confiscation" should never again be on the agenda are now arguing in favor of implementing it.

Kallas: If Russia wanted peace, it would have accepted an unconditional ceasefire

After the meeting, Kaja Kallas, European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, made it clear which of the three options the Commission supports: "The reparations loan is the most clear-cut way to sustain Ukraine's defence." According to her, this would show the Russians that time is not on their side. The Russian leadership is now drafting new peace plans and putting on a "good face again", because it is "afraid" of losing the assets, it is running out of money, and, despite wanting to appear super-strong, this is not the case, “which gives us reason to remain strong and stay the course.”

She argued that the EU has always supported a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace, but if the Russians really wanted peace, they would have accepted an unconditional ceasefire in March. They are the ones who could end this war immediately,"so the EU intends to increase pressure on them", she said. In her view, previous negotiations had also failed because the Russian regime had never made any real commitments, and there could be no successful peace plan without Europe and Ukraine. Russian tax revenues from oil are the lowest since the war started, she said, and accused Russia of state-sponsored terrorism because of the Polish railway sabotage.