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.
Costa added: “The union reserves its right to make use of the immobilised assets to repay this loan.”
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on X that the deal “is significant support that truly strengthens our resilience”, adding: “It is important that Russian assets remain immobilised and that Ukraine has received a financial security guarantee for the coming years.”
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 hinged 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. (theguardian.com)
