Orbán’s last stand: EU braces for showdown over €90B Ukraine loan – POLITICO

BRUSSELS ― For much of the past decade, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has succeeded in bending the EU’s agenda to his will by forcing leaders to overcome his vetoes in one high-level gathering after another.

On Thursday he’s ready to do it again — possibly for the last time as he faces a tough battle for reelection against rival Péter Magyar next month.

By threatening to block, at a gathering of EU leaders in Brussels, a €90 billion loan for Ukraine that he’d approved in December, Orbán has crossed a red line when it comes to opposing Brussels. In doing so he is setting himself up for a reckoning with the bloc that could come soon after the Hungarian election, five EU diplomats and one national European government cabinet minister said.