The Central Bank of Ukraine (NBU) raised this issue with the ECB after Hungarian authorities blocked vehicles and confiscated 40 million USD, 35 million euros and 9kg of gold transported from Austria to Ukraine.
The Central Bank of Ukraine said that the money and gold transported complied with international customs regulations under a contract between Raiffeisen Bank International of Austria and the state-owned bank Oschadbank of Ukraine.
ECB President Christine Lagarde "shared the NBU's assessment and emphasized the risks that this situation poses to the euro's position as an international currency," the ECB spokeswoman said. Ms. Lagarde will directly raise this issue with the authorities in Budapest and Brussels.
Hungary has returned the vehicles, but still retains a portion of cash and gold after the seizure took place in early March. This development has prolonged disputes and increased concerns among European officials.
For the ECB, Hungary's confiscation of Ukrainian gold touches on a sensitive issue: The credibility of the euro as a global currency also depends on the smooth operation of the financial infrastructure system and legal certainty between member countries. The ECB's association of this incident with the international position of the euro shows that the bank considers the incident a systemic risk to the entire bloc.
The dispute takes place in the context that EU institutions are seeking to promote the use of the euro internationally. EU officials believe that any perception of cross-border financial activities that may be arbitrarily interrupted within the bloc is at risk of hindering this goal.
Oschadbank has stopped importing cash into Ukraine since the incident and is "searching for new, safer routes," according to Chairman of the bank's Board of Directors Yuriy Katsion. He said that last year, the bank provided 39 Ukrainian credit institutions with about 1 billion USD and 800 million euros in cash brought from abroad, operations that have become routine since 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict caused Ukrainian airspace to be closed.
In a letter to Ms. Lagarde dated March 9, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy described the incident as a "intentional provocation", which risks damaging the EU's credibility and eroding confidence in the bloc's financial system.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister said that Hungary's confiscation of money, gold and arrest of 7 Oschadbank employees by armed forces is equivalent to "state terrorism". These Ukrainian citizens were later released but banned from entry for 3 years.
