Did Orbán lure the EU into a trap? – POLITICO

Probably not since Margaret Thatcher was in office have EU leaders been so outraged with one of their peers as they were last week when Victor Orbán again blocked a critical €90 billion loan to fund Ukraine’s war effort.

Admittedly, the language wasn’t quite as colorful as sometimes used about Britain’s Iron Lady. An exasperated Jacques Chirac once was caught on a mic complaining about Thatcher: “What does she want from me, this housewife? My balls on a plate?”

Nonetheless, there was no disguising the depth of anger at last week’s European Council meeting, with Orbán the villain of the piece as the Hungarian leader stubbornly declined once again to approve the critical financial lifeline for Ukraine. He’d only do so, he said, when Russian oil flows freely to Hungary through the Druzhba pipeline, damaged in a Russian air attack. Orbán accuses Kyiv of stalling repairs to it; Ukraine’s leader denies this.