“We expect the next payment of two and a half billion euros to reach Kyiv by the end of this month,” said Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice-president of the European Commission. The final tranche of €9 billion now looks certain to be sent in the new year, much later than the Ukrainian president had wished. Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders at a European Council summit last month that the remaining €6 billion was “critically needed this year”. EU officials said the bloc had sent 19 billion euros to Ukraine in loans and grants this year, but that did not include May’s emergency aid.
The European Commission now plans to send 1.5 billion euros a month in loans and grants to Kyiv next year, instead of the current case-by-case approach, to prevent a cash-flow crisis. The money is raised in the capital markets by the Commission rather than taken from the EU budget. This new common debt will then be transferred to Ukraine in the form of loans linked to policy objectives such as respect for the rule of law. This means that the aid is not on the EU’s regular spending books and prevents the need for national governments to take the loans on their books. The “more structural” scheme will aim to make its first payment in January once approved by EU governments and the European Parliament, Mr Dombrovskis said, and will aim to lock in support for Kyiv, the which hopes to one day join the EU.

‘Winter is coming’

“The main thing is to speed up the aid now,” Anika Saariko, Finland’s finance minister, told Euronews, “winter is coming and the situation is not easy.” “The Netherlands and the EU have been and will continue to be unequivocal in our support for Ukraine,” Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch finance minister, told the Wall Street Journal. “We expect that the latest proposal will provide further clarity and predictability to the EU’s financial support to the Ukrainian government.” However, the proposal will need the support of all 27 member states because it requires a change in the EU’s budget plans and Hungary is expected to threaten to use its veto. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has been locked in a series of battles with Brussels over blocked EU funds over rule of law concerns and his opposition to EU sanctions on Moscow. “Hungary is ready to continue its financial support to Ukraine on a bilateral basis, but under no circumstances will we agree to the EU receiving a loan to pay for this purpose,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.