Hungary blocks the EU’s “Plan B” to finance Ukraine
6 December 2025 08:10
Hungary has officially ruled out the possibility of issuing Eurobonds to support Ukraine. This move deprives the EU of a potential “plan B” if it fails to find a way to use frozen Russian state assets to finance a €165 billion loan to Kyiv. This was reported on Friday, December 5, by Politico, citing sources from among European diplomats, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to the publication, Budapest’s rejection of the idea of issuing joint bonds worth 90 billion euros, backed by the seven-year EU budget, came just a few hours before the dinner between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever in Brussels, which was planned.
“I take the concerns and objections of the Belgian prime minister very seriously,” Merz told reporters the night before. – “I don’t want to convince him, I want to convince him of the correctness of the path we have proposed.
The chancellor canceled a planned trip to Norway to do so.
Eurobonds – an alternative source of financing for Kyiv
Eurobonds could become an alternative source of funding for Ukraine, two diplomatic sources told Politico. Berlin’s proposal is a 25 percent guarantee to convince Belgium to transfer frozen Russian money to Ukraine, but de Wever wants broader guarantees from the entire EU that Belgium will be insured for the full amount or more, the newspaper recalls.
The United States persuades EU countries not to provide a loan to Kyiv against Russian assets
The U.S. government is trying to convince some EU countries to oppose the European Commission’s plan to use part of the frozen Russian assets for a reparations loan to Ukraine. Bloomberg reported this on December 5, citing European diplomats familiar with the situation.
According to the agency, U.S. officials told representatives of a number of European countries that these assets are necessary for a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv and cannot be used to prolong the war. In late November, the Belgian prime minister made this argument, saying that the EU plan could jeopardize the chances of a potential peace deal.
In the course of peace talks on Ukraine promoted by US President Donald Trump, the transfer of Russian assets frozen in the EU to the United States was discussed, according to media reports. This was opposed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said that this was an “intra-European issue” and that there was “no economic possibility” of transferring the funds under discussion to the United States.
on December 3, the European Commission proposed Eurobonds as one of the asset-backed options to guarantee replenishment of the budget of Ukraine, which is fighting Russian aggression, by April 2026. However, to increase the public debt at the expense of the EU budget to support Ukraine, only a unanimous decision of all 27 member states is needed.
