EU leaders failed to persuade Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to lift a block on a huge loan to support Ukraine’s war effort during summit talks on Thursday, leaving much-needed funds in limbo.
The nationalist prime minister, Moscow’s closest partner in the EU, has long refused to help Kyiv repel Russian incursions, delaying EU aid and repeatedly imposing sanctions.
This time, Orban put on hold a 90 billion euro ($104 billion) loan as leverage in a dispute over damage to a pipeline through Ukraine that diverts Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
“Hungary’s position is very simple. When we got oil, we were ready to support Ukraine, but Ukraine blocked the oil,” Orban said on arrival at the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at the summit via video link.
Orban has made clear he plans to take a tough stance as he has angered other EU leaders by leaning into anti-EU and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric ahead of bitter national elections on April 12.
Despite concerted pressure from his Brussels counterparts, he refused to back down.
“Orban has done nothing,” one EU diplomat concluded after the Ukraine talks. “We all know it’s about the elections – we have to get creative.”
Top EU diplomat Kaya Karas earlier warned that now was “really the time” to show support for Ukraine by releasing funds for this year and next – a deal signed by the Hungarian leader along with the rest of the EU in December.
But only 25 of the EU’s 27 leaders endorsed Thursday’s summit conclusions and reiterated their intention to start disbursing funds next month, with diplomats confirming resistance from Budapest and Bratislava.
Leaders agreed to revisit the issue at their next meeting, planned for late April, which requires unanimous consent.
– Election “weapons” –
The impasse stems from a weeks-long dispute in which landlocked countries Hungary and Slovakia accuse Ukraine of delaying pipeline repairs, while Zelensky calls Ukraine’s linking the issue to support for Kiev’s war effort “blackmail.”
The European Commission moved this week to defuse the situation by sending a team to help restore oil shipments, but Orban dismissed the plan as a “fairy tale.”
“We are waiting for oil,” Orban told reporters, calling the matter an “existential matter” for Hungary.
Many of his peers believe the block is motivated entirely by national politics.
“He used Ukraine as a weapon in his campaign, and that’s not good. We have a deal,” Finnish Prime Minister Petri Orpo told reporters in Brussels.
Belgium’s Bart de Wever similarly said Orban’s veto appeared to be “part of his campaign” and called his about-face “unacceptable”.
– insufficient –
As has become common practice in Brussels, Orban put numerous decisions on hold on Ukraine before finally finding a solution – in one famous case, leaving the room at the same time as the EU approved the start of membership talks with Kyiv.
But this time, it’s unclear when he will blink.
“He sounded like he wasn’t ready to be convinced,” another EU diplomat said after the talks.
Complicating matters further, leaders have been wary of offering opportunities to Orban, who trails arch-rival Peter Magyar in election polls, and are seeking to burnish his maverick image on the EU stage by publicly uniting against him.
Kiev faces a budget shortfall four years into the war and is expected to need an influx of funds in early May, meaning it has decided to unlock EU loans by mid-April.
Whatever the outcome, if the deadlock fails to be broken, the issue may be postponed until after the Hungarian vote.
Can Ukraine hold on until then? EU diplomats said it was unclear.
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