On Tuesday 22 October in Strasbourg, the European Parliament adopted by a large majority (518 votes in favour, 56 against, 61 abstentions) the legislative proposal to set up, by 2025, new European Union macrofinancial assistance for Ukraine worth up to €35 billion. It thus adopts the position of the Committee on International Trade (see EUROPE 13503/8).
Like the EU Council (see EUROPE 13500/27), MEPs are not amending the European Commission’s initial proposal, which stipulates that the advantageous loans granted to Ukraine will be repaid by future profits generated by the Bank of Russia’s assets tied up in the EU or by other types of specific contributions from Member States or third countries.
During the plenary debate, Parliament rapporteur Karin Karlsbro (Renew Europe, Swedish) argued that Russia should pay for the destruction of Ukrainian society. “Today, Parliament can make this possible by using the profits from frozen Russian assets”, she said. She added: “This is the first time this strategy has been applied in a structured way and on such a large scale”.
Like Raphaël Glucksmann (S&D, French), Rihards Kols (ECR, Latvian) advocated the creation of a “regulatory framework for the seizure of frozen assets” so that the system would not be dependent on the renewal, every six months, of European sanctions against the Bank of Russia. In his view, these sanctions should be imposed until Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine and pays reparations for the crimes and damage committed.
For the Co-Chair of The Left group, France’s Manon Aubry, “when borders are violated, when international law is flouted, there is no room for hesitation: we must stand on the side of the aggressed”. However, she condemned the “double standards” whereby Parliament’s support “for people under bombardment applies to Ukrainians, but not to Gazans”.
The far right opposed the granting of macrofinancial assistance. Thierry Mariani (PfE, French) condemned the €35 billion in assistance “that the Commission wants to impose on us as a miracle cure to keep alive a state that, long before the war, was riddled with corruption and incapable of meeting the basic needs” of its population. This “mountain of debt” - €18 billion in 2023, €33 billion in 2024 - will not be repaid, he said, convinced that the United States no longer wishes to participate in this “financial mismanagement". In the same vein, Milan Uhrík (ESN, Slovakian) criticised the Ukrainian government for “suppressing elections and abolishing the rights of minorities and independent media”.
On behalf of the European Commission, Didier Reynders recalled several innovative aspects of the future macroeconomic assistance: - the loan to Ukraine will be repaid by the Russian aggressor; - “an automatic correction mechanism” will allow the EU’s financial commitment to be lowered when the G7 partners present financial contributions enabling the level of €45 billion in total assistance to be reached. He thanked the Parliament for its speedy examination of the legislative proposal, which will enable Europeans to take the EU’s position to the ‘G7 Finance’ meeting in Washington on Friday 25 October, where the G7 partners are expected to announce their contributions.
It should be noted that the Parliament’s Committee on Budgets is asking the Commission to clarify the interaction and complementarity of the financing provided by the ‘Ukraine Facility’, the EU’s macrofinancial assistance to Ukraine over the period 2024-2027 (see EUROPE 13344/18), and by the present macrofinancial assistance for 2025, in particular as regards the political conditions attached to the granting of financial support and the reforms requested of Kyiv.
See the European Parliament’s position: https://aeur.eu/f/dz8 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)