Politico: Europe made no military aid pledges to Ukraine in July
Large EU economies have been unable to match the level of assistance being provided to Ukraine by other countries, such as the US, Poland and the UK.
Citing data from Germany's Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Politico reported that the six largest European nations made no promises of providing military assistance to Ukraine in July, marking the first month where no aid has been pledged since the war in Ukraine in late February.
This comes as a sign, according to the outlet, that "military aid to Ukraine may be waning."
The article, furthermore, accused some of the largest European economies - namely Germany and France - of failing to keep up with the military aid that has been flowing in from other countries such as UK, Poland and the US.
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The Kiel Institute has established a Ukraine Support Tracker, headed by Christoph Trebesch, to list and quantify international military, financial and humanitarian support which have been sent to Ukraine.
Trebesch revealed that Europe's military aid commitments to Ukraine have been decreasing since late April.
“Despite the war entering a critical phase, new aid initiatives have dried up,” he said, divulging that Ukraine's supporters in the west met in Copenhagen last week for a donor conference where €1.5 billion ($1.52 billion) were raised. However, that number is too little in comparison to what was pledged at previous events.
Trebesch stressed that the war in Ukraine is as important to Europe as the 2009 European debt crisis or even the COVID-19 pandemic, where billions were spent on emergency measures.
“When you compare the speed at which the checkbook came out and the size of the money that was delivered, compared to what is on offer for Ukraine, it is tiny in comparison,” he said, noting that EU's COVID-19 recovery budget was around €800 billion in debt, whereas aid to Ukraine is only a small fraction of that number.
“I would say it surprisingly little considering what is at stake,” he said.
Last month, the European Commission’s budget unit decided to block a loan that was issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB) which amounts to €1.5 billion ($1.52 billion). This decision came as a result of concerns over Ukraine’s “financial reliability", sources told Bloomberg.
The Ukrainian government said earlier last month that it expected the country’s post-war reconstruction to cost $750 billion. However, according to the EIB’s estimates, Kiev may need as much as $1 trillion in external assistance
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