EU pushes ahead with Ukraine loan plan despite Orbán’s veto threat
Photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Getty Images)
The European Union is focused on providing Ukraine with a €90 billion loan and is advancing the technical preparation of the payments, a senior EU official told RBC-Ukraine.
What Brussels says about work on the loan for Ukraine
Despite political disputes, the process of preparing the loan has not stopped. According to the source, an active technical phase is currently underway.
“We are focusing on the loan to support Ukraine, advancing the technical work in line with the mandate of the December European Council. The remaining amendments to the multiannual financial program must be adopted soon to go to the markets for borrowing,” the official noted.
Plan B if Orbán and Fico block the loan
As Politico recently wrote, citing its sources, the European Union has a plan for how to provide Ukraine with the promised €90 billion while bypassing the blockage from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.
At next week’s summit, the leaders of those countries will be persuaded, but a plan B is ready. It includes the Baltic states, Northern European countries, and the Netherlands, which will provide the money directly (through bilateral loans). This will allow Ukraine to receive the first €30 billion already in the first half of the year without the need for a unanimous decision by the entire EU.
Separately, the Netherlands is ready to allocate €3.5 billion annually for Ukraine until 2029.
About the €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine
Although all EU leaders agreed on the loan back in December 2025, an additional bill must be adopted for the final payment. This document is currently blocked by Budapest and Bratislava.
Orbán is slowing down the process due to the halt of Russian oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline. Ukraine said that the supplies stopped due to Russian strikes, while Hungary and Slovakia refer to “satellite images” and want an inspection of the facility. The Hungarians even sent a team to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that he does not want to restore the Druzhba pipeline. But according to him, the EU believes that this could help lift the Hungarian veto.
Zelenskyy explained that transit could be restored within a month and a half. But he would like the demand to restore the operation of Druzhba in exchange for unlocking €90 billion from the EU to be formally documented.
