The EU has reached a ‘consensus’ on the provision of support to Armenia, likely in the form of non-lethal defence aid, from the bloc’s European Peace Facility (EPF), Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan said on Tuesday.
Following reports that Hungary was blocking the approval of €20 million ($22 million) of non-lethal military aid from the EPF to Armenia earlier in 2025, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in May that Budapest did not oppose providing Armenia with aid from the EPF in principle.
Instead, he argued at the time that ‘in order to be balanced, and [for] the EU not to cause any kind of inconvenience in a very fragile situation’ — referring to the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan — Hungary called for an equal amount of aid to Azerbaijan. He cited the 2024 decision to both countries with €10 million ($11 million) in aid from the EU.
The EPF was created in 2021 and is a fund used by the EU to send military aid outside the bloc. Since its origin, the funds have been primarily sent to Ukraine.
Szijjártó’s comments came before the Washington meeting hosted by US President Donald Trump in August, during which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev initialled, but did not sign, a peace treaty.
Badalyan did not offer further details on the EPF funds, but said that ‘During the meeting with Minister Mirzoyan within the framework of the EU Foreign Affairs Council [on Tuesday], all EU member states reaffirmed the support provided through this and other instruments, so we can state that there is an expressed political agreement’.
‘After ensuring the necessary internal procedures are in place, we expect approval of the second support to Armenia under the European Peace Facility’, she concluded, responding to an inquiry from the Radar Armenia media outlet.
Relations between Armenia and Hungary have been strained for the better part of the past decade; Armenia suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary in 2012 after they released an Azerbaijani soldier who murdered an Armenian soldier with an axe during a NATO training programme in Budapest in 2004.
The two countries restored their diplomatic relations only in late 2022.
At the same time, Hungary has consistently had warmer relations with Azerbaijan, being one of the few EU countries to support Baku during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
