Viktor Orban's party is fighting back. Hungary wants to keep the millions and bullion seized from the Ukrainian bank for a while
Hungary's ruling Fidesz party has proposed that authorities hold the cash and gold seized last week from two vehicles of Ukrainian state bank Oschadbank for two months pending an investigation into the seizure. Ukraine accuses Hungary, in this case, of theft, writes Reuters on Monday.
The proposed law was submitted to the Budapest parliament on Monday and could be voted on on Tuesday.
Relations between Budapest and Kiev, already strained over Prime Minister Viktor Orban's close ties to Russia, hit a new low last week when Hungary detained seven Ukrainian employees of Oschadbank who were carrying around $82 million in cash and gold on suspicion of money laundering.
Kiev accused Budapest of taking bank employees hostage in a legitimate transfer to pressure Ukraine to resume suspended oil supplies.
Budapest expelled the Ukrainians on Friday evening, but the money and gold remain in Hungary.
Viktor Orban said on Saturday that “we will decide the fate of the confiscated money after we find out what it is about”.
“We want to know what Ukrainians are doing with this huge amount of money,” Orban said at a campaign event for the April 12 parliamentary election, which will face the biggest challenge to his rule in 16 years.
On Sunday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sîbiga demanded the immediate return of the money and gold, calling Hungary's actions “an unprecedented act of banditry and extortion.”
On Monday, Sîbiga stated that Hungary is caught in a “spiral of illegality”.
“After stealing money from the Ukrainian state bank, they are now proposing a bill to 'legalize' the illegal confiscation. This is a de facto recognition that Hungary's actions have no legal basis,” the head of Ukrainian diplomacy wrote in a post on the X social network.
Ukraine also accused Hungary of violating the rights of its citizens by handcuffing them for 28 hours, confiscating their personal belongings and not providing them with adequate medical care.
The bill submitted to Hungary's parliament on Monday proposes that the money and gold remain in Hungary for a period of 60 days while the tax authority carries out “secret intelligence-gathering activities” on the case.
The legislative proposal states that the investigation must clarify the origin and destination of the assets, as well as “the identity of the couriers and their possible links with criminal or terrorist organizations, as well as the consequences of the transport operation for the national security of Hungary.”
Oschadbank announcement
On Saturday, Oschadbank announced it would sue Hungary for the seized assets.
The financial institution stated that the seven employees who were in charge of transporting the goods and detained by the Hungarian authorities have since returned to Ukraine, but the vehicles and the values transported “remain illegally detained”.
According to the bank, two legal paths will be followed.
The first aims to challenge the restrictive measures imposed by the Hungarian migration authorities, and the second to investigate possible violations of the employees' rights during their detention, which allegedly lasted more than 24 hours without access to legal or consular assistance.
Oschadbank stated, according to The Kyiv Independent, that it will also request the return of the confiscated assets: two armored vehicles for transporting valuables, cash worth $40 million, 35 million euros and the approximately 9 kilograms of gold.
The Oschadbank incident further escalated tensions between Hungary and Ukraine.
The standoff between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has intensified, with the two exchanging threats over the dispute over the transit of Russian oil to Hungary and Budapest's blocking of billions of euros in European aid destined for Kiev.
Although a member country of the European Union and NATO, Hungary strengthened its ties with Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
