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No sane person threw a party in Bucharest when Viktor Orban lost. But they probably should have been paying closer attention because Orban’s defeat in Hungary could end up costing Romania billions of euros it simply doesn’t have.
Let’s start with a number: €4.5 billion. That is Romania’s share of the guarantee on the EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine. In theory, Ukraine repays the loan from Russian war reparations once the conflict ends. But here is the problem with that reasoning: what if Russia never pays? What if the war drags on for a decade, reparations never materialize, and the bill lands squarely on the guarantor countries? Romania will then have to go out and borrow €4.5 billion on financial markets, the way it always does, at rates that, once interest is factored in, could balloon that figure to nearly €9 billion over time.
Meanwhile, Hungary under Orban refused to enter this guarantee scheme altogether. So did the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They watched from the sidelines, took no financial risk, and paid nothing. Orban used his veto as a crude chip to keep Russian oil flowing through the Druzhba pipeline into Hungary. Now that Magyar has won, the expectation is that Zelensky will agree to reopen the Druzhba pipeline in exchange for Hungary dropping its veto. Hungary gets cheap Russian oil. Romania gets a €4.5 billion liability. This is what happens when you negotiate without leverage.
Peter Magyar’s supporters danced in the streets of Budapest. But the euphoria faded fast. Before Magyar could even formulate a coherent foreign policy, Brussels had already drafted the terms of his new reality. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wasted no time. Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on April 13, she announced that work would begin immediately with the new Hungarian government to unlock the €35 billion in EU funds frozen under Orban, but only under conditions. A reported list of 27 measures awaits Magyar’s signature: reversing constitutional changes, adopting the EU’s asylum rules (for which Hungary has already paid €900 million in penalties for non-compliance), fully embracing Brussels’ gender agenda, and lifting the veto on the €90 billion Ukraine loan. The message from Brussels was clear: “Welcome to the European family, now here is your to-do list.”
This is the paradox that should make every Romanian citizen uncomfortable. When Orban was in power, von der Leyen was apparently willing to release Hungarian funds simply in exchange for dropping the Ukraine loan veto. One condition. One deal. That was the price to bring Hungary back into the fold. Now that the “right” politician is in office, the list of conditions has exploded.
While Hungary negotiated fiercely to protect its interests, Romania’s Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has been moving in the opposite direction. In a recent interview with the French publication Le Figaro, Bolojan stated that he supports deeper EU integration, faster decision-making, and that he does not believe unanimity voting should be maintained in the EU. In plain language: he is in favor of eliminating Romania’s right to veto EU decisions. The backlash was immediate and justified. Foreign policy expert Ștefan Popescu, former Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, warned that this position is structurally dangerous for a country like Romania. “For a state like Romania with limited influence in the EU’s decision-making architecture, without the capacity to build alliances and without membership in a powerful regional format, the veto right represents the only instrument through which Bucharest can transform its presence into any kind of influence,” Popescu wrote.
His warning is not theoretical. Without unanimity voting, EU foreign policy decisions would be made by qualified majority. Meaning that France, Germany, and a handful of other large member states would effectively determine Europe’s direction. Countries like Romania, which already function more as implementation spaces for decisions made elsewhere, would lose their last formal mechanism to push back. Von der Leyen has been pushing this agenda since at least her 2025 State of the Union address, framing it as necessary efficiency reform. But efficiency for whom? Certainly not for countries on the EU’s eastern periphery.
Romania is guaranteeing €4.5 billion of a Ukraine loan while Hungary guaranteed zero. Romania’s PM is publicly endorsing the elimination of the one institutional tool that gives small member states any real negotiating power. And Romania sits with a stretched budget, chronic deficit pressures, and limited fiscal room to absorb a multi-billion euro shock if Ukraine’s reconstruction does not proceed as planned.
There is a Romanian saying that roughly translates: “the wolf changes its fur, but not its nature.” Brussels has changed its interlocutor in Budapest. The architecture of power, however, remains exactly the same. And Romania, as Popescu put it, risks becoming nothing more than “a simple space for implementing decisions made elsewhere”, paying billions for a war it did not start, under terms it did not negotiate, while giving away the only tool it had to say no.