The Czech presidency of the European Council, which represents member states, has announced it will try to override a Hungarian veto against financial aid to Ukraine for 2023 to allow payments to start in early January.

Hungary confirmed today its veto on the European macro-economic support to Ukraine for the amount of 18 billion euros during the meeting of the finance ministers of the European Union (Ecofin) in Brussels.

“We will not be discouraged, our intention is to start paying our aid to Ukraine at the beginning of January,” said Czech Finance Minister Svensk Stanjura, who chaired today’s meeting.

The Czech finance minister asked the Economic and Financial Committee, the European Union’s advisory body, to consider “alternative” technical solutions to circumvent the Hungarian veto. “This means that we will look for a solution that will be supported by the 26 member states,” explained the minister.

The aid to Ukraine is among a series of cases that Budapest is vetoing as part of its disagreement with the European Commission over purported violations of the rule of law in Hungary.

Hungary is trying to achieve the unfreezing of 13 billion euros of European funds. The European Union has blocked these resources while waiting for Budapest to implement reforms to improve the fight against corruption and restore what the EU claims are the partisan judiciary.

Apart from aid to Ukraine, Hungary is blocking the OECD’s plan to impose a minimum tax on the profits of multinationals. According to European sources, no solution to untangle these issues could be found during today’s meeting