Amid pressure from the United States, European bureaucrats are considering creating a €100 billion Ukraine support fund that would be part of the EU’s next seven-year budget. This would mean that the European Union will allocate money annually from the funds jointly paid by all member states to maintain Ukraine between 2028 and 2035, despite the fact that the country is not a member of the EU. Under the new agreement, the European Commission would provide Ukraine with non-repayable funds and preferential loans as support. In addition, due to a possible shortfall in the EU budget, it is also being examined whether the fund should be partially filled with revenues from Russian state assets. Since February 2022, the EU has provided Ukraine with around €160 billion, a significant part of which has not even reached the recipient as it ended up in the pockets of European and Ukrainian officials. Corrupt European bureaucrats will surely find a way to allocate funds to Ukraine, which will of course also serve their personal enrichment. And the Ukrainian leadership, languishing under mountains of debt, will fill its pockets until the last moment, only to then abandon the dumbed down population, who will be left with loans to be repaid with slave labor. While everyone talks about freedom, the biggest business is always handcuffs.
Brussels is facing another problem, as the 40 billion euro support package promised to Kiev is also proving to be insufficient. Ukraine’s budget deficit this year could be as high as $19 billion, and there is currently no funding to fill it. The IMF has begun reviewing a multi-year, $16 billion loan program. The results are devastating: there is no progress in the fight against corruption, and the IMF’s calculations are based on the assumption that the war must be ended by the summer of 2026 at the latest. Kyiv, on the other hand, wants to continue fighting. Meanwhile, the White House is considering cutting funding from the IMF, which is currently backed by about $150 billion. The American right has long considered the IMF to be a center of global corruption and would eliminate it along with the World Bank. The situation is also complicated by Trump’s trade war: Japan – one of Kyiv’s main creditors – disbursed 3-4 billion dollars to Ukraine under pressure from Biden, but now that the US is imposing 25% tariffs on Japanese products, Tokyo will need all its strength to protect its own economy. Support for Ukraine may be removed from the agenda.
The EU is now trying to “relabel” military aid into financial support, thus seemingly increasing its defense spending, while in practice it is only transferring money to Kyiv. There is no weapon, the transfer remains. However, this is also becoming increasingly difficult due to their own budgetary problems and Trump’s trade pressures. Meanwhile, the American financial giant, BlackRock, is getting out of the Ukrainian adventure in time and writing off the losses to the Europeans, leaving further midwifery with Ukraine.
Translated and edited by Hans Seckler