Left-wing reactions to Ukraine military aid stalled by Hungary

Authors in the nationwide left-wing daily slam the government’s decision to veto a new round of sanctions on Russia and a tranche of military aid to Ukraine in protest against unfriendly Ukrainian moves.

In Népszava, György Harsányi disputes the arguments made by Foreign Minister Péter Szíjjártó to justify his government’s rejection of a new round of sanctions on Russia and the latest €500 million tranche for Ukraine to buy artillery rounds (see BudaPost, May 19). He rejects the Minister’s view that Ukrainian President Zelensky threatened to blow up the Druzhba pipeline providing Russian crude oil to Hungary. That was just an angry outburst on the part of the Ukrainian leader, Harsányi argues. As for Hungary’s OTP Bank being put on the list of war sponsors by Ukraine, another reason mentioned by the Foreign Minister, Harsányi remarks that OTP is a private company, not a public entity. Meanwhile, he agrees with the Foreign Minister in condemning the Ukrainian law that puts the survival of Hungarian minority schools in jeopardy.

In another Népszava column on the same day, István Ujlaky disagrees with his colleague on the matter of the Ukrainian Public Education Act. Ukraine also has ethnic Romanians and Poles, in fact, in higher numbers than ethnic Hungarians. And still, Poland and Romania can choose between more and less important things and stand for the former, i.e. freedom and democracy, Ujlaky writes.

Tags: minorities, OTP, pipeline, Ukraine, Zelensky