EU will return to plan A if loan for Ukraine does not work - Kaja Kallas
Photo: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas (Getty Images)
The European Union may return to discussing a reparations loan for Ukraine if Hungary continues to block the allocation of €90 billion, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this at a press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
She recalled that the €90 billion loan for Ukraine, which EU leaders approved at the end of last year, was a plan B.
Kallas said that plan A had envisaged the use of frozen assets and that, if plan B did not work, a return to plan A would be considered, while stressing that Ukraine must be provided with the funding needed to resist Russian aggression.
Reparations loan
Last year, the European Union actively discussed the idea of providing Ukraine with a reparations loan of €210 billion backed by frozen Russian assets.
However, EU countries failed to agree on this initiative. The key reason was Belgium’s position, which demanded strong guarantees for such a decision. A large portion of Russia’s frozen assets is held in the Belgian depository Euroclear.
According to The Guardian, Russian intelligence attempted to intimidate Belgian officials so they would be reluctant to support the reparations loan.
As a result, at the end of December, EU countries decided to allocate a €90 billion loan for Ukraine. The decision was approved, but the funds have not yet begun to be transferred. The obstacle was Hungary’s veto on a procedural decision required to provide the loan.
