{"id":17355,"date":"2026-04-19T18:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/17355\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T18:54:14","slug":"orban-signals-readiness-to-approve-e90b-eu-loan-to-ukraine-once-druzhba-oil-is-flowing-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/17355\/","title":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n signals readiness to approve \u20ac90B EU loan to Ukraine once Druzhba oil is flowing \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOnce oil deliveries are restored, we will no longer stand in the way of approving the loan,\u201d Orb\u00e1n <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PM_ViktorOrban\/status\/2045858614053613689?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">wrote on X<\/a> Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Approving the financial lifeline to Kyiv could be among his last actions as Hungarian prime minister \u2014\u00a0a surprising turnaround for a leader who has weaponized anti-Ukraine sentiment for years. Orb\u00e1n is set to step down in mid-May after losing last Sunday\u2019s election to opposition leader P\u00e9ter\u00a0Magyar.<\/p>\n<p>The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia has been at the center of a diplomatic quagmire between the EU and Hungary. In February, Orb\u00e1n vetoed the EU\u2019s \u20ac90 billion loan after Ukraine seemed to refuse to repair the infrastructure that was damaged by Russian strikes.<\/p>\n<p>But in a sudden turnaround, \u00a0Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/volodymyr-zelenskyy-expects-hungary-lift-veto-ukraine-loan-druzhba-oil-flows-resume-end-april\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">promised<\/a> to repair the Druzhba infrastructure by the end of April shortly after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/hungarys-tisza-party-widens-parliamentary-majority-as-final-votes-are-counted\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/hungarys-tisza-party-widens-parliamentary-majority-as-final-votes-are-counted\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Magyar won the election<\/a> last weekend. There are high hopes in Kyiv that Hungary\u2019s incoming leader will mend ties with Ukraine after years of bad blood under Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough Brussels, we have received an indication from Ukraine that they are ready to restore oil deliveries via the Friendship pipeline as early as Monday,\u201d Orb\u00e1n wrote. <\/p>\n<p>He said that his stance has been consistent all along. \u201cHungary\u2019s position has not changed: no oil = no money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The financial operation won\u2019t impose any cost on Hungarian taxpayers, as the country has been exempted from paying interest rates on the loan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOnce oil deliveries are restored, we will no longer stand in the way of approving the loan,\u201d Orb\u00e1n&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1919,54,39,40,58,663,2752,510,2830,16,62,28,64,111,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-17355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-development","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-hungary","13":"tag-infrastructure","14":"tag-interest-rates","15":"tag-oil","16":"tag-pipelines","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-slovakia","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-viktor-orban","21":"tag-war","22":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}