
(ANSA-AFP) - BRUSSELS, MAR 19 - EU leaders failed at summit talks Thursday to persuade Hungary's Viktor Orban to lift his veto on a 90-billion-euro ($104 billion) loan for Ukraine, diplomats said. Only 25 of the bloc's 27 leaders endorsed summit conclusions reaffirming their intent to begin disbursing the funds in April, with diplomats confirming the holdouts were Budapest and Bratislava. Orban has been holding up the massive loan -- despite endorsing it in December -- as leverage in a feud over damage to a pipeline running through Ukraine, which has choked the flow of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. (ANSA-AFP).