By Andrew Gray and Lili Bayer
BRUSSELS, March 19 (Reuters) – European Union leaders failed to convince Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a summit on Thursday to lift his blockade on a vital 90-billion-euro ($103 billion) EU loan to Ukraine, officials said.
EU leaders agreed to the loan in December but Orban, who has cordial ties with Russia and has clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has so far blocked its implementation, citing a dispute over a war-damaged pipeline.
Orban’s stance has angered other EU leaders as Kyiv could run short of money in weeks if it does not receive new funding and his U-turn has called into question the credibility of the European Council, the EU’s highest decision-making body.
(Additional reporting by Kate Abnett, Bart Meijer, Miranda Murray, Essi Lehto, Gianluca Lo Nostro, Gergely Szakacs, Andreas Rinke, Olena Harmash, Julia Payne; Writing by Andrew Gray and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Stephen Coates and Timothy Heritage)
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