BRUSSELS: The European Union is drawing up plans to provide Ukraine with 1.5 billion euros ($1.46 billion) in economic aid per month next year, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Friday.
Speaking after an EU leaders’ summit, von der Leyen said Ukraine had requested that international donors provide “a stable, reliable and predictable flow” of macroeconomic support.
Ukraine’s economy has been shattered by Russia’s eight-month-old invasion, and Kyiv estimates that it needs at least four billion euros in grants or loans per month to ensure basic government functions.
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Von der Leyen said the money would be provided by the EU, United States and international economic institutions – and that it would henceforth be sent as regular cash injections, after initial delays.
In their summit statement, the EU leaders said they would quickly provide an outstanding three billion euros of already allotted support, and called on the commission to design “a more structural solution”.
Speaking to reporters, von der Leyen said this would see around about “1.5 billion per month for Ukraine financed by the European Union.
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“So this will give overall a figure of 18 billion for the next year, an amount Ukraine can count on and where there’s a stable and reliable predictable flow of income,” she said.
“We have tasked the finance ministers to develop the appropriate mechanism. But it was important also to give the signal to Ukraine, that we very well know how important this reliable flow of income is.”
On Thursday, the first day of the summit, President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed EU leaders by video link and complained that Russia had turned his country’s power grid into “a battlefield”.
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