EU will continue working on €90 billion loan for Ukraine despite Hungary’s veto, - Dombrovskis
On Tuesday, 24 February, the Council of the EU intends to approve two EU legislative acts on granting Ukraine a €90 billion loan, which will allow technical work on the loan to continue even if Hungary blocks the third draft law needed to complete the process.
This was stated by European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis in response to a question from the EP, according to Censor.NET.
Work on the loan will continue
Dombrovskis assured that the European Commission would continue to prepare to provide Ukraine with the first tranche of a €90 billion loan in April 2026, despite Hungary's refusal to adopt one of the bills necessary for this.
"First of all, what will happen tomorrow (24 February, ed.): tomorrow, the Regulation on the loan to support Ukraine will be finalised, and this process is going according to plan," the European Commissioner said.
He explained that the approval of this document on 24 February "will complete the political decision-making process on the loan to support Ukraine."
"This will allow us to work on further documents necessary for granting a loan to Ukraine, including a financing strategy for this year... We are already working on all these documents," Dombrovskis said.
Political discussions
He noted that political discussions are currently focused on amendments to the multiannual financial framework – the European Union's long-term budget for 2021-2027.
"These amendments are necessary so that the European Commission can actually borrow at the EU level to provide this support to Ukraine," Dombrovskis said.
Therefore, Hungary's refusal to approve changes to the EU's long-term budget does not pose an immediate threat to the process at this time, as the European Commission must prepare to raise funds for Ukraine on international financial markets.
The European Commissioner recalled that "in December, all EU leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán, agreed to support the loan," noting that Hungary, along with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, is not participating in this financial support.
"Therefore, we expect them to abide by this agreement... We would like to start payments to Ukraine as early as the beginning of April," Dombrovskis added.
