Hungary's New Leader Agrees To Unblock €90bn EU Loan To Ukraine
- 13.04.2026, 18:25
This is what was expected of him in Brussels and Kiev.
Peter Magyar, whose party won a constitutional majority (two-thirds of seats) in the Hungarian parliament following Sunday's elections, will not prevent Ukraine from receiving a loan from the European Union. He announced this at a press conference on Monday.
This is exactly what was expected of him in Brussels, two EU diplomats told the Financial Times this morning. Lifting the veto on the loan to Ukraine and a new package of sanctions against Russia should be the first step in a process that could unlock up to 35 billion euros that the EU has refused to lend Hungary over various disputes, primarily related to the Viktor Orban regime's undermining of democratic norms.
Orban approved the loan in December along with the rest of the EU, but abruptly withdrew his approval in February when Russian oil pumping through Ukraine via the Druzhba pipeline stopped. It had been damaged by Russian shelling, but Orban accused Ukraine of blocking supplies for political reasons. Kiev was scheduled to start receiving money from April.
The Ukrainian government estimates that it needs $52 billion in foreign funding for this year, with most of the deficit expected to be covered by an EU loan. Ukraine only has money to finance its budget and defense until June, Bloomberg reported.
Brussels wants to act quickly to transfer money to Kiev, the agency said. Cyprus, which now holds the EU presidency, will raise the issue at a meeting of the bloc's ambassadors in the near future, a Cypriot official told it.
Magyar said Budapest will reserve the right not to participate in the loan to Ukraine. He expressed this position during the election campaign, saying his government would not provide it with military aid.
The new government is due to take office within a month.
The departure of the perennial troublemaker Orban, who has always exercised his veto power and was seen as Vladimir Putin's Trojan horse, allows the EU to count on Hungary to support Kiev more actively - if only by not putting sticks in its wheel, says Bloomberg Europe columnist Lionel Laurent.