{"id":448158,"date":"2026-03-19T18:14:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T17:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/03\/19\/orban-continua-a-bloccare-il-prestito-allucraina-ma-lue-insiste-prima-tranche-entro-linizio-di-aprile\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T19:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:26:18","slug":"orban-keeps-blocking-the-loan-to-ukraine-but-the-eu-insists-first-tranche-by-early-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/19\/orban-keeps-blocking-the-loan-to-ukraine-but-the-eu-insists-first-tranche-by-early-april\/","title":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n keeps blocking the loan to Ukraine, but the EU insists: “First tranche by early April”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>, made his position clear straight away upon his arrival at the European summit: \u201cWe will not support any position in favour of Ukraine until the oil issue has been resolved.\u201d The EU leaders pulled no rabbits out of the hat and swiftly adopted the conclusions<\/a> on support for Kyiv, with 25 member states, excluding Hungary and Slovakia. Not before emphasising\u2014as Antonio Costa did personally, a senior official confirms\u2014Orb\u00e1n\u2019s \u201cunacceptable behaviour\u201d, as he continues to block the \u20ac90 billion mega-loan to Ukraine<\/strong>, already agreed in December. Despite the deadlock, the European Council is striving to appear optimistic and \u201clooks forward to the first disbursement to Ukraine by early April.\u201d <\/p>\n

The impression is that the only way to break the deadlock would be for Orb\u00e1n to lose the parliamentary elections scheduled for 12 April in Hungary<\/strong>. This is because the nationalist leader has made the confrontation with Ukraine (and with Brussels) the centrepiece of his election campaign, and is unlikely to backtrack. But even if Peter Magyar were to win in Budapest, Orb\u00e1n would remain in office until the end of spring. And for Kyiv, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts, stalling the loan until June could have disastrous consequences. Not to mention that the Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico<\/strong>, has already warned that, with Orb\u00e1n out of the picture, he might throw a spanner in the works. Fico informed<\/a> the European Council that he has already declared a \u201cstate of oil emergency in Slovakia\u201d, due to Kyiv\u2019s \u201cunilateral decision\u201d to halt oil transit via the Druzhba pipeline.<\/p>\n

\"Viktor
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n (left) and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico (photo: European Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Orb\u00e1n, however, as well as resorting to blackmail, has suggested a possible solution: “Hungary\u2019s position is very simple. We will be ready to support Ukraine once we get our oil back<\/strong>, which is being blocked by them.\u201d He frames it as a matter of national security: the disruption to crude oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline, which has been hit by Russian bombing on Ukrainian territory, \u201cis a matter of survival; it is no joke, no political game.\u201d The issue has been ongoing for weeks: Hungary and Slovakia accuse Ukraine of deliberately holding up the transit of Russian oil to Budapest, whilst Kyiv maintains that the pipeline is damaged and difficult to repair due to ongoing Russian bombardment. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n has skilfully linked the issue of the pipeline not only to the release of the 90-billion-euro loan, but also to the green light for the 20th package<\/a> of sanctions against Russia, which the European Commission had hoped would be approved as early as 24 February, on the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. On this point too, the European Council makes no attempt to untangle the knot and merely states that it is \u201clooking forward to the swift adoption of the twentieth package of sanctions<\/strong>.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At the leaders\u2019 meeting, Costa reportedly reiterated that \u201cthe situation regarding the Druzhba pipeline is a separate matter,\u201d and that \u201cits restoration depends solely on Ukraine\u2019s ability to repair it and on Russia\u2019s willingness not to destroy it again.\u201d The European Commission has taken steps <\/a>for an inspection, some technicians are already on site, and Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> himself, speaking via video link with the leaders, chose to tone down his rhetoric and “committed to fully restoring the flow of oil as soon as possible<\/a><\/strong> and to fully honouring Ukraine\u2019s role as a reliable energy partner of the EU.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Volodymyr Zelenskyy joins the European Council via video link. Antonio Costa from behind [EU Council]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his speech<\/a>, the Ukrainian president expressed frustration over the 90-billion-euro loan, which \u201cwas supposed to come into effect in the spring but has been blocked,\u201d and over the twentieth package of sanctions, which \u201ccould have continued to put pressure on Russia to move towards a genuine peace.\u201d Zelensky assured that \u201cUkraine is doing everything necessary, including regarding the pipeline,\u201d and that \u201cour team of energy companies, Naftogaz and UkrTransNafta, is working productively to deliver on what we discussed.\u201d But Zelensky highlighted the fundamental inconsistency: if the European Commission is indeed going to work to repair a pipeline transporting crude oil from Moscow to the EU, when, in April, a legislative proposal<\/b><\/a> is expected to impose a ban on Russian oil imports from the end of 2027. “The decision is yours: do you want Europe to import Russian oil, knowing that this helps the aggressor?<\/strong>” <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another solution already exists, and it runs through Croatia via the Adriatic Pipeline. The Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovi\u0107<\/strong>, reiterated that Zagreb \u201cis already supplying\u201d Budapest, and that, given the pipeline\u2019s capacity, it could \u201cguarantee energy security and oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia even when Druzhba is not operational.\u201d But Plenkovi\u0107 also emphasised: “There is a difference in the price of oil purchased on the market elsewhere compared to that which passes solely through the pipeline from Russia, via Ukraine, to Slovakia and Hungary. And the price difference, they say, is 30 per cent lower<\/strong>. So perhaps this gives you a fairly clear answer as to where the problem lies.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hungary and Slovakia are at loggerheads over the conclusions of the EU summit on support for Ukraine. The Druzhba pipeline issue is dominating the debate. Costa highlights Orb\u00e1n\u2019s \u201cunacceptable behaviour,\u201d who reiterates: \u201cWe will say yes when we get our oil back; it is a matter of survival\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":436597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[27175,27335,30781,30669],"class_list":["post-448158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-council-en","tag-ukraine-in-2","tag-viktor-orban-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448159,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448158\/revisions\/448159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}