EU to unblock €10bn for Hungary ahead of Ukraine summit

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The European Commission is set to unfreeze €10bn of Hungary’s EU funds blocked over rule of law concerns on the eve of a summit where Viktor Orbán has vowed to block financial and political support for Ukraine.

The Hungarian prime minister has for weeks threatened to veto the bloc’s plans to allocate €50bn to Kyiv over the next four years as well as a decision to start EU membership talks with Ukraine, as long as his country’s funding is not unblocked in full.

Pressure on EU leaders to throw a financial lifeline to Ukraine nearly two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion is mounting after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s unsuccessful bid to secure US funding during his trip to Washington earlier this week. The Ukrainian president met Nordic leaders in Oslo on Wednesday and was expected to make an appearance at the summit in Brussels on Thursday, which he described as “not an easy meeting”.

Zelenskyy said he was aware of Hungarian opposition but stressed: “We have done absolutely everything . . . to prevent one or another state blocking the beginning of this negotiation.” If Ukraine did not receive a green light from the EU summit, it would show “that Putin has vetoed this decision”, Zelenskyy warned in Oslo.

Orbán on Wednesday signalled willingness to “make financial deals on financial matters” but suggested he continued to oppose the start of EU membership talks with Kyiv. Ukrainian officials insist that both decisions are equally important for morale in the war-torn country and trust in continued support from western allies.

If the pugnacious Hungarian prime minister — the EU’s longest serving leader — does strike a quid pro quo deal before the end of the week, it would match his typical style of using the country’s veto power in the unanimity-driven bloc to extract last-minute concessions from maximalist…