a minute agoEU Ambassador: Financial situation in Ukraine is terrible, funds needed
Periskopi(4 years ago)
(4 years ago)Ukraine is unlikely to pay its external debt, but the financial situation within the war-torn country is horrible and requires urgent foreign assistance to compensate for a monthly budgetary shortage worth 5 billion euros, the EU ambassador in the country said. Funds are needed to keep the economy in [...]
The funds are needed to keep the economy standing and to pay pensions, salaries and basic public services, all the time that Russian forces march forward with their brutal invasion.
International financial assistance comes from various sources. But it is not yet enough to overcome this gap,” Ambassador Matti Maasikas told Euronews during a recent visit to Brussels.
Last week, EU countries agreed to issue the first 1 billion-euro tranche of the 9 billion-euro financial assistance package the bloc promised in May.
Member states have not yet reached an agreement for the remaining 8 billion euros.
Money is collected by the European Commission on capital markets and then distributed to Kiev in the form of long-term and favourable loans.
The interest costs stemming from the transaction will be covered directly from the EU budget.
The war has entered the fifth month without a solution to the horizon. Wars are now focused on Donbas, a large part of which is now under Russian control.
Asked when the conflict might end, the ambassador avoided giving a specific timeline, but predicted: the “result would be placed on the battlefield”.
