A photo taken on May 5, 2022 shows the receiver station of the Druzhba pipeline of petroleum between Hungary and Russia at the Duna (Danube) Refinery of Hungarian MOL Company located near the town of Szazhalombatta, about 30 km south of Budapest. ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
EU countries on Wednesday, April 22, gave a preliminary green light to unblocking a €90 billion loan for Ukraine, with Hungary given 24 hours to sign off definitively. Cyprus, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said ambassadors from bloc's 27 member states had agreed to launch a "written procedure" for final approval by Thursday afternoon.
Budapest has said it is waiting for oil to arrive through the Druzhba pipeline after Kyiv fixed it following a months-long row. The pipeline has been at the center of a standoff between Ukraine, the European Union, and Hungary and Slovakia, which still import Russian oil via the pipeline.
Hungary and Slovakia confirmed transit had started and said supplies should start arriving Thursday. Hungarian energy giant MOL said it "expects the first crude oil shipments following the restart of the Ukrainian section of the pipeline system to arrive in Hungary and Slovakia by tomorrow at the latest." Slovakia's Economy Minister Denisa Sakova also said the first deliveries were expected in the early hours of Thursday, in a post on Facebook.
