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businesses across Europe grow at AWS.EU. Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 11, and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast.

The vibe in Brussels today is prepared.

Hungary is still blocking the EU's €90 billion loan for Ukraine and time is running out,

but European countries have contingency plans.

Awesome on the pod?

We've interviewed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's man in Brussels,

and he tells us why he thinks Europe's rising right-wing wave may not be ready for power. And a new report put out by the EU's climate advisors lays out plans to tackle the carbon

footprint in agriculture. With Ian's still out, I'm joined by Catherine Carson today. She's our senior

finance reporter here at Politico. Hey, Katie. Good morning, Zoya. I have a question for you this morning because you always have these very colorful icebreakers for people on the podcast. What's your favorite icebreaker question? Oh, that's a good one. I mean, I do like to ask people's favorite fruit because it's unexpected. What's your favorite fruit? I like a mango. What's your favorite fruit? Well, I previously have said that it's a grapefruit,

but today I think I'm going to say that it's a raspberry. What is the favourite response that

you've had to that question? Juicy fruit. Juicy fruit. That's a gum in Australia.

Righty-o, let's start with the Ukraine-Hungary drama that is gripping Brussels today.

We've got a story out this morning, myself and a couple of my colleagues, looking at essentially the plan for if Hungary continues to block the planned 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine that was promised by all 27 EU leaders in December,

but that has now been walked back by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Now, this is money

that Ukraine desperately needs, Katie. Yeah, absolutely. It's the bulk of the financing that it

needs to keep fighting against the Russian aggression through the end of 2027.

Now it seems that there is a potential Plan B that they're coalescing around.

There's some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of Ukraine having some of that money.

Yeah, that's right.

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