All 27 EU members agree to allot 50 bln euros from EU budget to Ukraine - European Council president

BRUSSELS. Feb 1 (Interfax) - The EU heads of state have agreed at a summit in Brussels to allot 50 billion euros from the EU budget for financial assistance to Ukraine, European Council President Charles Michel said on Thursday.

"All 27 leaders agreed on an additional 50 billion euro support package for Ukraine within the EU budget," Michel said on the X social network.

The EU is holding a special budget summit in Brussels on Thursday.

It was decided to convene the special EU summit after the EU leaders failed to approve amendments to the four-year budget at a regular EU summit on December 14-15 because of the veto by Hungary. The latter rejected the terms of allotting 50-billion-euro macro-financial assistance to Ukraine as part of the overall budget increase by 64.6 billion euros.

Gergely Gulyas, minister of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, said on Thursday morning Budapest was not sure the EU summit would succeed in approving the assistance to Ukraine as, in his opinion, the EU was trying to blackmail Hungary instead of looking for a compromise.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said later that Hungary did not object to further EU assistance to Ukraine but did not want to be a contributor.