EU provides Ukraine with $1.6 bil in financial aid

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
25 Jul 2023 15:30

The head of the European Commission announced that the purpose of this financial aid is to keep the Ukrainian state running.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the Crystal Palace in Porto, Portugal, Saturday, May 8, 2021 (Violeta Santos Moura, Pool via AP)

On Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, declared that the European Union had allocated an additional $1.6 billion to Ukraine as part of its macro-financial aid.

"Today we paid another €1.5 billion, to help keep the [Ukrainian] state running and repair infrastructure. More will come," Von Der Leyen wrote on social media.

In early July, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell revealed that the commission intended to allocate an extra 20 billion euros for military assistance to the Ukrainian government, which led to opposition from Hungary.

Last week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto expressed concern that Kiev had not provided an account of how it utilized the funds released thus far.

A report released by Politico revealed on Tuesday that the European Peace Facility (EPF) is facing the risk of exhausting all its funding due to the high level of EU assistance for Ukraine.

"Our level of support to Ukraine in the military is now so high, that money allocated to the European Peace Facility for Ukraine will be soon exhausted," an official source was quoted as saying by Politico.

The agency was founded in March 2021 as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy framework to strengthen the EU's role as a global security provider.

The EPF's budget for the 2021-2027 period amounts to 5.69 billion euros.

Last year, EU member states convened on resorting to the EPF to partially fund military assistance to Ukraine.

In December 2022, funding for the agency was increased by 2 billion euros.

Last month, the Council of the European Union agreed to increase the agency's overall financial ceiling with an additional 3.5 billion euros.