Borrowing debt on the markets with support from the EU budget or bilateral agreements for individual loans at national level. These are the options on the European Union’s table to help Ukraine finance its defense if the effort to issue a reparation loan indexed to Russian assets in member countries fails.
This plan B was drawn up by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and presented to the leaders of the 27 in a letter to which the The Guardian and Euronews had access, cas an alternative to borrowing that continues to be seen as the best option by most Member States, but which faces opposition from Belgium. It has 140 billion euros of Russian assets frozen in the Euroclear financial repository, causing Prime Minister Bart De Wever to demand “the maximum” legal certainty and watertight guarantees from all Member States to ensure “total mutualization” of risks and transparency to locate other sovereign assets.
“If they take the money out of my country, if things go wrong, I am not able, and certainly not willing, to pay 140 billion euros in a week,” said De Wevercited by Euronews. Furthermore, the Belgian State considers that it will be burdened with expensive legal proceedings if Russia or any associates sue us over assets at the end of the war.
Von der Leyen makes no secret of the fact that she prefers the reparation loan option indexed to Russian assets, which is based on the idea that Russia would eventually agree to pay reparations to Ukraine. Citing a day in recent weeks when Russia launched more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles and nearly 500 drones against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the European leader wrote: “The message we send now must be very clear: Europe stands with Ukraine.”
Next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday. On a visit to Paris, Zelensky signed an agreement to purchase 100 Rafale fighter planes, as well as air defense systems and drones.
The Ukrainian president said he was “deeply grateful to France, President Emmanuel Macron and the entire French people” for their support for Kiev since the Russian invasion in February 2022. To journalists, Macron stated that Ukraine and its allies are ready for peace talks, but, defended the French head of state, Moscow does not want an end to the conflict, taking into account the most recent Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructures. “Russia doesn’t want peace,” he said.
And on the day that Poland considered the explosion that destroyed a railway line on its territory also used to transport weapons destined for Ukraine as an “act of sabotage”.suggesting the involvement of “foreign intelligence services”, without however directly naming a country and increasing fears that the conflict with Russia will officially go beyond the borders of Ukraine, also José Manuel Durão Barroso left a warning. Former President of the European Commission defended the need for Europe to be prepared for a war against Russia. In an interview with Lusa, on the sidelines of the EuroAméricas Forum, in Carcavelos, the former Portuguese prime minister stated that Poland is actively preparing for a war and said it was “very possible” that Portugal would have to participate in a wider conflict.