Europe Launches €400 Million Fund for Ukraine
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is launching a new €400 million fund to help rebuild Ukraine.
This is reported by Reuters.
It is noted that 16 of the 27 EU countries have agreed to contribute to the Ukraine Trust Fund. The fund will provide grants and loans, as well as guarantees to Ukrainian banks and businesses.
France and Italy have provided the largest contributions - EUR 100 million each. These funds can be used to repair large infrastructure, provide financing to small and medium-sized enterprises or utilities.
"As the European Union, we are financing Ukraine's resilience. We provide funding to develop the resilience of society and the economy," said EIB Vice President Teresa Czerwinska.
Czerwinska, who is running to become the next head of the EIB, said that last year the bank disbursed €1.7 billion to Ukraine, including for schools, hospitals, social housing and kindergartens, and urban transport.
She added that the bank would supplement the new fund with an additional €100 million in technical assistance to help Ukraine use the money effectively - something that more developed and wealthier EU countries struggle with in peacetime.
The EU is supporting Ukraine's budget with €18 billion this year and has pledged €50 billion in 2024-27 to help rebuild the country after the war Russia launched against it in February 2022.
Before the new funding begins, Czerwinska said the new EIB fund would act as a bridge, with a completion date of the end of 2025.
In 2022, the bank allocated €1.7 billion to Ukraine, including for schools, hospitals, social housing and kindergartens, as well as urban transport.
Germany, the EU's largest economy, was not among the initiators of the EIB fund, and according to a German diplomat, Berlin prefers to spend through the EU's central budget, which all member states contribute to.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the World Bank has mobilised support to strengthen the Ukrainian government's ability to finance basic public expenditures, including social payments. Together with the latest loan, the World Bank Group has managed to provide more than $37.5 billion in emergency assistance to Kyiv, including commitments and guarantees from donor countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, France, and many others.
As reported by The Gaze, at a conference in London, international donors pledged billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. Kyiv requested almost €6.5 billion for the first wave of recovery, focused on rebuilding the energy sector before winter.
According to the World Bank, as of March 2023, Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction needs were estimated at $411 billion. The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine reported that in 2022, the UK government allocated more than $1.5 billion to Ukraine to finance the state budget.
Also during the event, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a three-year financial assistance package worth $3 billion.