The timing must have been irresistible for Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.
The European Union was pushing through two important projects in time for the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this week. One was a critical 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine of about $106 billion, and the other the E.U.’s 20th package of sanctions to increase pressure on Russia.
Mr. Orban, who is entering a surprisingly tough election campaign, decided to play the spoiler. He raised an objection to the loan and the sanctions and turned what was supposed to be a sterling show of European solidarity into an embarrassing display of disunity.
By now, E.U. members are familiar with such tactics by Mr. Orban, who has routinely thrown up obstacles to their plans in order to win concessions. That did not make his action any less enraging to European partners, who saw the timing as clearly connected to elections in Hungary on April 12, in which Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party is struggling.
“Using the European agenda to wage domestic political battles, and doing so after having turned one’s own society — through propaganda — against a fighting Ukraine, is, in my view, a violation of European solidarity,” Radosław Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, told reporters on Monday.
After nearly 16 years in power, which makes him the longest serving prime minister in the European Union, Mr. Orban had consolidated a seemingly impregnable position. He has dominated politics in Hungary and tilted election campaigns in his favor by seizing control of most of the media, redrawing electoral districts and changing campaign finance rules.
Yet economic stagnation and deteriorating public services have left him unusually vulnerable in the current campaign.
His chief opponent, Peter Magyar, 44, is a defector from his own party and has gained a following with his center-right party, Tizsa. He has accused Mr. Orban of corruption and of neglecting basics like education, health care and transportation.
Mr. Magyar has also promised to improve relations with the European Union, which has held up development funds for Hungary as Mr. Orban has undermined the country’s democratic institutions.
The opposition’s threat is serious enough that Mr. Orban has sought to shift the focus to a perceived external enemy, as he has done in the past, said Daniel Hegedus, deputy director at the European Institute for Politics in Berlin.
In this year’s election, Ukraine is being used in that way, to stoke fears that Hungarians will be dragged into a prolonged war. Mr. Orban has consistently portrayed Ukraine as a drain on European finances that will impoverish everyone.
“He has always played this game, using his veto as a kind of threat, essentially as a bargaining chip,” said Zselyke Csaky, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform, a research organization in Brussels. “It is more driven by domestic politics right now because Hungary will have elections in two months and Fidesz is not doing well at all.”
Recent polls have shown Fidesz trailing with a majority of Hungarians supporting Tisza.
The concession Mr. Orban is seeking to drop his objections to the loan and sanctions package is the resumption of Russian oil supplies to Hungary via the Druzhba, or Friendship, pipeline through Ukraine. Those supplies have been disrupted for the last month, threatening an energy price spike at an especially inopportune moment for Mr. Orban.
The pipeline, which runs through Ukraine and supplies Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia, was damaged in a Russian attack in January, according to Ukraine. Hungary and Slovakia have accused Ukraine of deliberately restricting oil supplies and delaying repairs.
“As long as Ukraine blocks the Friendship oil pipeline, Hungary will block the €90 billion Ukrainian war loan,” Mr. Orban announced in a post on X on Wednesday. “We cannot be blackmailed!”
The message was part of a pattern by Mr. Orban, portraying himself as a protector of Hungary’s security and stability to improve his stature at home.
“It sends a signal to the E.U. that Hungary still matters, it still blocks things and can act as a bottleneck,” said Gregoire Roos, director of the Europe and the Russia and Eurasia Programs at Chatham House, a research organization in London.
“And it also shows voters that apart from all that has been written about him, that Orban still retains significant power in Brussels that he can block a 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine. It is not insignificant,” he said.
On the campaign trail this week, Mr. Orban warned of further disruptions to energy supplies, and positioned himself as a leader who could stop it.
“Without affordable energy, Europe’s automotive industry is at risk. With it, factories stay open, jobs are protected, and competitiveness survives,” he told a rally. “You can count on us.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.
Carlotta Gall is a senior correspondent, covering the war in Ukraine.
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