The president of the Eurogroup urges the leaders of the European Union (EU) to give Ukraine “certainties” of economic support at next week’s summit, when a reserve of 50 billion euros destined for kyiv will be discussed.
“The MFP [Quadro Financeiro Plurianual] is very important in the coming years as far as Ukraine is concerned because the main objective that we have to achieve in the coming days [ao nível do Conselho Europeu] is to give certainty to the Ukrainian people about our ability to support them while the war continues and, therefore, I believe that our leaders will find a way to do that,” said Paschal Donohoe, in an interview with Lusa, in Brussels.
A few days before a decisive European Council in which the review of the multiannual budget of the European Union (EU) will be debated, which provides for a reserve to support the reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine, the president of the Eurogroup admitted that it will be a “very difficult”, although he affirms that he believes that “at the end of next week the heads of Government [de Estado europeus] We will be involved in this process.”
“I am optimistic, but I am optimistic for reasons of necessity, we have to reach an agreement on these issues,” stressed Paschal Donohoe.
Given possible alternatives, such as separating discussions between the EU’s multiannual budget and support for Ukraine, the official underlined his intention to “reach an agreement on the global MFF.”
“I am sure that this is the approach that will be taken until the last moment and it is certainly the result that I would prefer to see achieved and […] “I think we are all aware of the urgent need to give certainty to the Ukrainian economy on how to finance it next year and I know that almost all governments understand this issue well,” Paschal Donohoe insisted.
Since the summer, the EU has been debating a proposal to revise the 2024-2027 MFF, which provides for a reserve of 50 billion euros to support the reconstruction of Ukraine, 15 billion for migration management and 10 billion for “green” investments and technological, amounts that would have to be added to the current multi-annual budget of 2,018 million euros at current prices (1,800 million euros at 2018 prices).
For Ukraine, this instrument is planned for the next four years, with loans and subsidies for the reconstruction of the country after the war, caused by the Russian invasion, and also to prepare a possible future accession to the EU, for an amount to be mobilized depending of the situation on the ground.
So far, the EU has already provided 16.5 billion euros in macroeconomic aid to Ukraine, to finance daily needs, and should mobilize an additional and final tranche of 1.5 billion by the end of the year.
Asked by Lusa about the ongoing debate on creating new resources for the EU budget (which would be added to the current ones for customs duties, VAT, packaging waste and country contributions), the leader of the informal group of the single currency admitted to be “very difficult to identify new forms of taxation.”
Regarding the debate on the use of Russian assets to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine and thus ease the burden on the EU budget, Paschal Donohoe told Lusa that “it is very important that the consideration be made in an international context.” , particularly in the G7, which advocates “careful analysis.”
The position comes as the European Commission is about to publish an unprecedented legal proposal, which could happen next week, at a time when the 27 EU member states (mainly Belgium) have already frozen more than 200 thousand million euros in assets of the Russian central bank due to sanctions policy.
Source: TSF
