EU approves €90bn loan for Ukraine as pipeline is turned on ending deadlock

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : We hope the EU will also deliver on the agreed commitments.
57% : Ukrainian oil and government sources told officials in Hungary and Slovakia that pumping had restarted, hours after the EU ambassadors began discussing the loan.
57% : His election defeat last Sunday also cleared the air for the EU, bringing to an end his 16-year era as prime minister.
56% : " If the EU loan is finally agreed, it could still take weeks before funding arrives in Kyiv, Ukrainian media report.
55% : Ukraine says it has resumed pumping Russian oil through a pipeline into Hungary and Slovakia, bringing to an end months of deadlock over a €90bn (£78bn) loan seen as vital European Union support for Kyiv.
55% : Soon afterwards, EU ambassadors meeting in Cyprus gave preliminary approval to the loan, as well as a 20th package of sanctions on Russia, officials said.
50% : EU leaders will sign it off at an informal summit on Thursday.
50% : The EU funding has been described by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka as "a matter of life and death" for Kyiv, and two-thirds of it will be spent on bolstering Ukraine's defence needs while the rest will go on broader financial assistance.
46% : Orbán's decision to renege on last December's agreement to provide Ukraine with a €90bn loan had infuriated EU leaders, who had agreed to give Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic an opt-out from the scheme.
44% : "Ukraine really needs this loan and it's also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ahead of the ambassadors' meeting.
44% : "The EU asked Ukraine to repair the Druzhba oil pipeline, which had been destroyed by Russia.
38% : The Hungarian leader, long seen as the EU's closest partner to Russia's Vladimir Putin, made hostility towards both Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and the EU central to his failed election campaign.
34% : In the run-up to Hungary's bitterly contested election this month which Orbán lost, he had accused Ukraine of imposing an "oil blockade" on his country and neighbouring Slovakia, claiming that the EU was working with Kyiv against him.

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