Kallas: Hungary vote creates new momentum for Ukraine

EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said Hungary's elections, in which incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had blocked key decisions for Ukraine, was defeated, had created new momentum for Kyiv.

Speaking at a press conference in Luxembourg on Tuesday after the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, Kallas said she expected a positive decision on the EUR90 billion loan within the next 24 hours following the vote in Hungary. She also said the EU was being urged to move quickly on the 20th sanctions package and should revisit long-blocked decisions, including the opening of negotiating clusters with Ukraine and the arms fund under the European Peace Facility. In addition, she said the bloc should reconsider sanctions that had previously been on the table but were not agreed and should move ahead with a new sanctions package.

Kallas also said ministers had discussed Ukraine at the start of the council meeting.

She said ministers had again heard directly from Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha about the situation and noted that although an Orthodox Easter ceasefire had been announced, Russia had not respected it. Instead, she said, Moscow had intensified its attacks on Ukrainian civilians, showing that Putin was not abandoning his maximalist military goals.

In this connection, Kallas said the EU had to continue providing Ukraine with what it needed so that it could hold out until Putin understood that the war was leading nowhere.

She added that the EU remained Ukraine's biggest backer alongside military and financial support, and noted that the EU mission had already trained more than 90,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Kallas also said there was broad support for advancing the fourth pillar of European security guarantees, focused on defense sector reform, hybrid and cyber threats, as well as veterans.

She also described the decision to allow Russia back into the Venice Biennale as immoral and confirmed that the EU intended to reduce its funding.