Von der Leyen in Kiev

EU announces billion euro loan for Ukraine

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj.(Bild: AP)

The European Commission is planning a 35 billion euro loan for Ukraine, which is to be secured with interest income from frozen Russian state assets. This was announced by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Kiev on Friday. 

The money is the European share of the G7 countries' planned loan of 50 billion dollars (around 44.82 billion euros) for Ukraine.

G7 decides on new financial aid
The seven major Western industrialized nations (G7) decided on the new financial aid for Kiev at their summit in June. The original plan was for the EU and the USA to support the G7 loan with 20 billion dollars each. The "Financial Times" wrote on Friday, citing three unnamed sources, that the EU's share would be reduced again if the USA were to participate in the aid at a later date.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is currently visiting Ukraine.(Bild: AP)

The USA is demanding that the sanctions regime in the EU be changed first. Currently, the freezing of Russian funds must be confirmed every six months - whereby the United States is likely to be particularly concerned that Russia-friendly Hungarians could block this. In this case, the funds would be released again, which would also mean that the money for securing the loan would be gone. As the news agency Reuters recently wrote, Brussels is working on a solution in the background.

Loan still has to be approved
As the EU Commission explained in a press release, the loan still has to be approved by the EU Parliament and a qualified majority of EU member states.