The European Union ambassadors\u2019 meeting gave preliminary approval to the \u20ac90 billion loan package to Ukraine on Wednesday, 22 April. It is expected to be finalized on Thursday, 23 April, as EU leaders gather in Lefkosia and Agia Napa, Cyprus, for an EU Summit.<\/p>\n
This comes in the wake of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine announcing on Tuesday that the oil flow had been restarted in the Druzhba pipeline. The pipeline runs through Ukraine and delivers Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia.<\/p>\n
It stopped operating in late January. Both outgoing prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n of Hungary and Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia were sceptical of Kyiv\u2019s claim that it was functionally unoperational due to damage endured by a Russian attack. Instead, PM Orb\u00e1n was of the opinion that it was a pressure tactic by the Ukrainian government to get Hungary to drop its opposition to Ukraine\u2019s accession to the EU.<\/p>\n
After Orb\u00e1n lost his reelection bid for Prime Minister of Hungary to challenger P\u00e9ter Magyar on 12 April, President Zelenskyy\u2019s announcement came on 21 April that the \u2018repairs\u2019 of the pipeline had been completed and the oil transit resumed.<\/p>\n
PM Orb\u00e1n responded to the now-ended shutdown of the Druzhba pipeline by blocking the \u20ac90 billion loan to Ukraine in the EU Council. He made the move despite the commitment he gave to other EU leaders in December 2025 that he would not do so, after they granted Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia exemptions from contributing to the loan.<\/p>\n
With Orb\u00e1n choosing not to attend the last EU Summit during his tenure as Prime Minister, and thus unable to exercise Hungary\u2019s veto power, approval of the EU loan to Ukraine is expected to be finalized by all observers.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ukraine really needs this loan, and it\u2019s also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine,\u2019 High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas has stated, as quoted by the <\/a>BBC<\/a>. President Zelenskyy will also be in attendance at the Cyprus meeting of EU leaders.<\/p>\n EU Summit Cyprus: Energy Crisis in Focus<\/p>\n Unfortunately, however, the loan package to Ukraine is not the most pressing matter on the EU summit\u2019s agenda in Cyprus.<\/p>\n The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iranian officials announced its reopening on 17 April, last Friday. However, they quickly rescinded that after the United States refused to list its naval blockade of Iranian ports.<\/p>\n A second round of peace negotiations was set to take place between the US and Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it never materialized due to tensions over the blockade and Israeli military action in Lebanon.<\/p>\n However, both the American and Iranian sides maintain the possibility of the talks happening, and bombardment was not restarted by either side despite their initial ceasefire agreement expiring on Tuesday night. President Trump has announced he is indefinitely extending the ceasefire period until Iran submits its proposal to the peace talks.<\/p>\n All these developments pushed crude oil prices back up in the international commodity markets.<\/p>\n As of the time of writing this, futures contracts for a barrel of American-produced WTI crude oil were trading at around $94.50. The British Brent crude is at $103.6, while the UAE\u2019s Murban crude is at $104.8.<\/p>\n The energy crisis hits European nations especially hard, given their lack of natural resources (compared to the major oil producers of the world) and the ongoing sanctions on Russian energy imports imposed for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n The 20th sanctions package on Russia is also expected to be approved at the Cyprus EU summit, along with the \u20ac90 billion loan to Ukraine.<\/p>\n The fuel price hike is already having an impact on the transportation and aviation industry in Europe, increasing operational costs and placing additional pressure on consumers. These issues are expected to be front and centre at the summit in Cyprus. However, it is still unclear exactly what measures the Union is willing to take to mitigate the energy crisis.<\/p>\n Related articles:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union ambassadors\u2019 meeting gave preliminary approval to the \u20ac90 billion loan package to Ukraine on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[25757,8264,416,7938,307,25758,459,25759,9657,8267,67,330,25760,350,325],"class_list":{"0":"post-39592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-viktor-orban","8":"tag-cpyrus","9":"tag-druzhba-pipeline","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-eu-summit","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-iran-usa","14":"tag-oil-prices","15":"tag-peace-negotations","16":"tag-russia-sanctions","17":"tag-russo-ukrainian-war","18":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-ukriane-loan","21":"tag-viktor-orban","22":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116453997570412696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}