European Parliament approves 35 billion euros for Ukraine from Russian funds
22 October 2024 15:35
The European Parliament has approved a decision to provide Ukraine with a loan from the EU under the G7 loan agreement, which will be repaid from the proceeds of Russia’s frozen assets. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Evropeiska Pravda.
The loan is worth 35 billion euros as part of a broader G7 loan totalling $50 billion (about 45 billion euros). The decision was voted for by 518 MPs, with 56 against. The vote was followed by hours of debate.
“With this vote, we are sending a strong signal that we are using the proceeds of Russia’s frozen assets to support Ukraine. And Russia, as an aggressor state, must pay, and will pay,”
– stressed the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola.
The final amount of the EU loan may be less if any of the other G7 countries decide to provide more than planned.
The loan will be provided through the new Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism. It means that Ukraine will receive $50bn, but it will not have to pay it back – the lenders will take the money from the proceeds of the frozen Russian assets. It should be noted that we are talking only about the frozen assets of the Central Bank of Russia.
One of the conditions of the mechanism is that Ukraine adheres to democratic standards, and specific political conditions will be set out in a Memorandum of Understanding.
The loan will be monitored and supervised under similar mechanisms as the €50 billion macro-financial assistance agreed earlier. As part of this programme, Ukraine has committed to implementing a reform plan known as the Ukraine Plan.
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on 22 October, the UK announced its share of the G7 loan of almost $3bn.
According to the latest information, the US is ready to provide Ukraine with up to $20bn under the G7 loan agreement, although it was previously expected that this contribution would be less due to problems with the guarantee agreement, in particular due to Hungary’s position blocking the freezing of Russian assets for three years.
Meanwhile, it turned out that the Netherlands has frozen 7 times less Russian money than expected.
Russian money abroad
Around €260bn of the Central Bank of Russia’s assets have been frozen in the form of securities and cash in the jurisdictions of the G7, the EU and Australia, with more than two-thirds of them frozen in the EU.
belgium controls €190bn of assets in euros, the US controls assets worth between $40bn and $60bn, and the UK controls around £25bn.
As for the funds of individuals, the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, claimed at the beginning of the full-scale war that Russians had about $1 trillion of dark money abroad. According to its 2020 report, a quarter of this amount is controlled by Putin and his oligarchs.
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