Hungary raised an objection to the European Union\u2019s plan to loan 90 billion euros to Ukraine during a meeting of ambassadors on Friday, an unexpected hurdle that could make funneling needed money to Kyiv more difficult than anticipated.<\/p>\n
The Hungarian ambassador caused a delay in the plan \u2014 which would fund the loan by issuing debt backed by the E.U. budget \u2014 according to two European diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomacy. The objection was previously reported<\/a> by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n Peter Szijjarto, Hungary\u2019s minister of foreign affairs and trade, then confirmed<\/a> the country\u2019s opposition on social media on Friday evening.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are blocking the \u20ac90 billion EU loan for Ukraine until oil transit to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline resumes,\u201d Mr. Szijjarto wrote.<\/p>\n The Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Ukraine and supplies Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia, is undergoing disruptions after what Ukraine says<\/a> was a Russian attack. Hungary and Slovakia have accused Ukraine of deliberately restricting<\/a> oil supplies.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine is blackmailing Hungary by halting oil transit in coordination with Brussels,\u201d Mr. Szijjarto wrote, adding, \u201cWe will not give in to this blackmail.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not yet clear whether Hungary can have its concerns assuaged in some way, or whether it will continue to object.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the Hungarian ambassador referred to Mr. Szijjarto\u2019s post when asked for comment.<\/p>\n The move comes just days before the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and at a time when Kyiv is desperately in need of fresh funding. It also comes not long before an April election that could topple Hungary\u2019s president, Viktor Orban, a fervent Ukraine critic and a perennial obstacle to European Union decision-making.<\/p>\n The European Union agreed in December to make its \u20ac90 billion<\/a> \u2014 or about $106 billion \u2014 loan to Ukraine by borrowing against space in the bloc\u2019s own budget. Doing that requires unanimous approval of all 27 member nations. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic agreed to the plan on the condition that they would never have to pay costs related to the loan.<\/p>\n Even that was a backup option: European leaders had initially hoped<\/a> to borrow the loan against frozen Russian assets held in Belgium, but that plan ran into too much opposition.<\/p>\n The legal details of the loan are now being finalized, and the European Union had been hoping to disperse the funds to Ukraine early in the second<\/a> quarter, which begins in April. But that timeline has collided with both the pipeline issue and the political cycle in Hungary, where Mr. Orban has escalated his criticism<\/a> of Ukraine ahead of the election.<\/p>\n Lasting Hungarian opposition could delay or even stop the money. The two diplomats said it is not yet clear whether the situation will become that serious.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was unanimous political agreement to provide \u20ac90 billion in decisive support for Ukraine\u2019s budgetary and military needs over the next two years,\u201d said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesman at the European Commission, the European Union\u2019s executive arm. \u201cWe expect all member states to honor that political agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hungary raised an objection to the European Union\u2019s plan to loan 90 billion euros to Ukraine during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[126510,2000,299,5187,1699,2190,4609,226995,2191,15857,332,657,226996],"class_list":["post-778174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-defense-and-military-forces","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-hungary","tag-international-relations","tag-oil-petroleum-and-gasoline","tag-orban","tag-pipelines","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-viktor"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116105686809739975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}