Márton Nagy

A March 2023 joint investigation by VSquare.org and Direkt36, based on leaked internal IIB documents, found that in early February 2023 a draft letter was prepared naming Márton Nagy, Hungarian Minister of Economic Development, as its sender and Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem as its recipient. "At the beginning of February, a draft letter was prepared, which, according to leaked documents, had Márton Nagy, Hungarian Minister of Economic Development, as the sender, and the Belgian Minister of Finance, Vincent Van Peteghem, as the recipient. The letter was aimed at convincing Belgium to unfreeze the IIB's blocked account with Euroclear," arguing that Russia did not have undue influence over the bank because its ownership stake had recently been reduced to 45.44 percent. Strikingly, the reporting found the draft was commented on and corrected during editing by the IIB's Russian deputy chairman, Georgy Potapov — meaning a diplomatic letter to be sent in the Hungarian government's name was shaped by the leadership of a Russian bank facing Western sanctions. The article concludes that "the Hungarian government considers cooperation with the Russian-dominated bank extremely important, even in the face of the war," and notes that reporters sent comment requests to multiple Hungarian government representatives but received no response. The US sanctioned the IIB in April 2023, after which Hungary withdrew from the institution.