The Europeans said “yes” to a loan of 35 billion euros to Ukraine. It will take the form of a loan to the innovative mechanism since it will be financed by the profits generated by Russian assets frozen as part of European sanctions against Moscow. The 27 Member States had already said “Yes” last week and today, so it was the MEPs who gave the green light.
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With our special correspondent in Strasbourg, Jean-Jacques Héry
By 518 votes in favor in the chamber, 56 against and 61 abstentions, MEPs adopted by a large majority the financing of a loan to Ukraine financed by the interest generated by frozen Russian assets. With this new mechanism, the European Union will therefore use, not directly the 280 billion euros of Russian assets frozen within the EU – a complicated method for legal reasons -, but will levy the interest what these sums bring in. Interests which reach between 2.5 and 3 billion euros per year.
“ This is the first time that Russia will pay for support for Ukraine. We have finally taken a step forward in supporting Ukraine and in the message sent to Russia: it will pay for all the destruction committed in Ukraine », Rejoices Raphaël Glucksmann, Social Democratic MEP.
Raphaël Glucksmann would even like to see the EU go further, to the point of seizing all Russian assets frozen in European banks. For Mounir Satouri, environmentalist MP, existing sanctions should be better applied at the same time. “ Create a real and total embargo on gas and oil from Russia because we have gas transiting through Azerbaijan that we continue to receive at home. And it’s money that goes into Putin’s coffers “, he said.
This Tuesday’s vote won a broad consensus in the chamber. Except on the far right, French MEP Thierry Mariani of the Patriots for Europe, far right, thus deploring a loan “ imposed by the (European) Commission to keep alive a state already corrupted well before the war by corruption “.
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