The president of the European Commission welcomed this Friday, the 19th, with the approval of support of 90 billion euros for Ukraine for the next two years, warning Moscow that the immobilized resources will continue to do so.
“We set out to do this and we achieved it,” said Ursula von der Leyen, at the start of a joint press conference with the President of the European Council, Portuguese António Costa, and the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, in Brussels.
At the end of a European Council meeting, the last of the year and which lasted into the early hours of today to try to find an agreement to finance Ukraine in 2026 and 2027, the 27 dropped the proposal to use revenues from frozen Russian resources and set their sights on the proposal for a loan of 90 billion euros.
Ursula von der Leyen warned that Ukraine will only repay this loan when Russia pays reparations for the war that began in 2014 and worsened in 2022.
The president of the European community executive added that “the European Union reserves the right to use them [os recursos congelados] to finance the loan.”
“There was no clear path to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and there was no clear path to support for Ukraine [assente na utilização dos recursos russos imobilizados]”, commented Ursula von der Leyen.
EU heads of state and government today reached an agreement to provide 90 billion euros in support to Ukraine over the next two years, the president of the European Council announced.
“We have an agreement. The decision to grant 90 billion euros in support to Ukraine for 2026-27 was approved. We committed and fulfilled it”, announced António Costa, on his official account on the social network X, after more than 15 hours of negotiations at a summit in Brussels.
The compromise at the level of the 27 was reached around what was called “plan B”, the issuance of joint debt, given that “plan A”, a reparations loan based on fixed Russian assets, did not reach consensus, particularly due to Belgium’s rejection.
In one of the most important meetings of the European Council, given the urgency to secure funds for Ukraine for the next two years, the heads of government and state of the 27 EU members had two options on the table: a reparations loan based on Russian assets frozen in the community space (the option that seemed to obtain more support, a qualified majority and less budgetary effort, despite Belgian opposition) or a joint debt issuance (which required unanimity).
They ended up opting for the second option, based on issuing joint debt to mobilize money for Ukraine, taking advantage of the budgetary margin as a guarantee for Brussels to go to the markets.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine’s needs for the next two years are around 137 billion euros, with the EU wanting to meet them with close to two-thirds.