Costa pressures Orbán to lift veto on €90B Ukraine loan amid Druzhba dispute

Key facts

• António Costa urged Viktor Orbán to unblock a €90B Ukraine Support Loan agreed by EU leaders on 18 December.
• Hungary threatened to block the loan unless Ukraine resumes Russian oil flows via the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia.
• Orbán accused Ukraine of slow-walking repairs after the Druzhba pipeline was damaged in a Russian drone attack; Costa said he will raise Druzhba with Zelenskyy.

3 minute read

European Council President António Costa has escalated pressure on Hungary to remove its hold on a €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan, warning Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that backtracking on the European Council’s 18 December agreement would damage the credibility of collective EU decision-making. In a letter seen by POLITICO, Costa urged Orbán to “unblock the implementation” of the loan and explicitly framed non-compliance as a violation of the EU principle of sincere cooperation, a formulation that signals political and potentially legal gravity even if the immediate dispute remains procedural and financial rather than military.

The immediate trigger is Budapest’s stated intention to block the loan unless Ukraine restores Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline into Hungary and Slovakia. Orbán has further argued that Kyiv has been slow to repair the pipeline after it was damaged in a Russian drone attack, placing responsibility for downstream energy impacts on Ukraine while leveraging an urgent EU financial instrument. Costa’s response attempts to separate two dossiers that are increasingly entangled: sustaining Ukraine’s macro-financial resilience during wartime and managing Central Europe’s exposure to Russian energy transit disruptions and infrastructure vulnerability to long-range strikes.

For European defence and security stakeholders, the episode underscores a recurring strategic risk: a single member state can exploit unanimity-sensitive decisions and time-critical support packages to seek concessions on unrelated files, complicating EU crisis response. It also highlights the operational security dimension of energy infrastructure under attack by unmanned systems; the Druzhba damage attributed to a Russian drone strike reinforces that critical energy corridors remain a target set in the wider conflict, with second-order effects on EU cohesion and Ukraine support mechanisms.

Costa’s indication that he will raise Druzhba with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggests a political attempt to neutralise Hungary’s stated energy-security concerns without conceding on the principle that European Council decisions should be implemented. If Hungary maintains its blockade, the EU faces a choice between accommodating linkage politics—risking repeat behaviour—or pursuing alternative structures that reduce veto leverage, a trend with direct implications for how Europe funds and sustains Ukraine over a protracted war.

Source: POLITICO Europe