EU leaders have pledged a €90bn loan for Ukraine to meet urgent financial needs, but failed to agree on the preferred option for securing that loan against Russia’s frozen assets in the bloc.
After talks ended in the early hours of Friday, the president of the European Council, António Costa, told reporters: “We committed and we delivered.”
He said EU leaders had approved a decision to make a €90bn loan to Ukraine for the next two years backed by the EU budget, which Kyiv would repay only once Russia pays reparations.
EU leaders entered the summit on Thursday with many wanting to secure the urgently needed loan against some of Russia’s €210bn frozen assets on the continent. But the plan fell on the demand of Belgium, which hosts 88% of the Russian funds in the EU, to have unlimited budget guarantees from other member states if Moscow won a successful claim for damages.
We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Minister of State for Europe and Defence and Meath-East Fianna Fail TD, Thomas Byrne, who is currently in Brussels for this.