BRUSSELS, March 20 (Reuters) – The EU will find ways to pay out the promised 90 billion euro ($104.2 billion) loan to Ukraine despite Hungary’s ongoing resistance, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said early on Friday.
“We will deliver one way or the other,” von der Leyen told reporters after a summit in Brussels, where EU leaders failed to convince Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to lift his blockade on the vital EU loan to Ukraine.
EU leaders had condemned the “unacceptable” resistance by Hungary during their meeting, EU Council President Antonio Costa said.
“A deal is a deal, we need to honour our word. And no one can blackmail the European Council,” Costa said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the European Commission had been asked by leaders to find ways to pay out the loan, and called Orban’s veto an unprecedented “act of serious disloyalty”.
“This will leave its mark,” he said. “This is a serious violation of the principle of loyalty of the member states amongst each other, and it damages the standing of the European Union.”
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(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Bart Meijer; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Stephn Coates)
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