Ukraine suspends listing of five Greek companies as ‘war sponsors’ but maintains Hungary’s OTP Bank

Kyiv, however, has made no changes to the listing of OTP Bank, the largest commercial bank in Hungary.

OTP Bank has previously described the designation as ”unjustified.”

”We see no reason to exclude it,” said a spokesperson of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the body that manages the list.

The suspension regarding the Greek firms was taken on Tuesday night, the spokesperson explained, and is meant to last while bilateral negotiations with the European Commission take place.

The talks are believed to be focused on the new package of EU sanctions, which were proposed more than a month ago and remained blocked by the Hungarian and Greek governments.

Ambassadors are due to meet on Wednesday afternoon in a new attempt to break the impasse and reach the needed unanimity.

Athens and Budapest have repeatedly complained about the inclusion of their domestic companies in the Ukrainian list and have asked for their removal as a pre-condition to move forward with the 11th raft of sanctions. The blockage is also preventing the release of a new tranche of €500 million in military assistance.

The demand has put Brussels in an awkward position as it could be seen as meddling in Ukrainian internal affairs. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said he would reach out to his counterparts in Kyiv to tackle the issue.

“We have to do everything we can in order to make the next package of military support for Ukraine being approved. If one member state has a difficulty, let’s discuss about it,” Borrell said last month.

The list of “international sponsors of war” targets private companies that, according to the NACP’s assessment, still do business in Russia, pay taxes to the federal government and therefore contribute to fueling the war machine.

The list is devoid of legal power, lacks formal criteria and bases many of its assumptions on media reports, rather than internal investigations

But its name-shaming effect has proven problematic for the targeted companies, which forcefully contest the claims and the explosive label of ”war sponsor,” and also for the Western countries that host them.

As of today, the list covers 28 companies, 16 of which are EU-based.