Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in an interview to public radio on Friday, said the punitive measures announced by the US embassy were not sanctions against Hungary. The list announced by Washington includes 34 private individuals, including a single Hungarian and others from countries including Cyprus, Austria and Liechtenstein, he said, adding that the action focused “basically on finance professionals”. Orbán said Hungary never agreed with the usefulness of sanctions but did not question anybody’s right to introduce them. “They have been acknowledged and will be respected,” he added.
The Budapest-based International Investment Bank (IIB) could have played an important role in developing central European economies, he said, but ever since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine it was clear the bank’s potential had been circumscribed and the recent sanctions “destroyed it”. Under these circumstances, he added, Hungary’s participation in the bank’s future activities had become senseless, and it therefore withdrew its delegates from the bank and quit the IIB.