European Union leaders have agreed to provide financial support to Ukraine in the amount of 90 billion euros in the period 2026-2027. This was announced by the President of the European Council, António Costa, early on Friday, December 18 on the social network X.
According to the Financial Times and Reuters, Kyiv's allies intend to raise capital on financial markets under the guarantees of the EU's common budget. This means that the European Commission's plan to use the Bank of Russia's frozen assets to provide a so-called compensation loan to Ukraine has in fact failed.
According to Financial Times sources familiar with the discussions, Belgium is determined to provide extended guarantees to cover any financial risks related to legal claims and possible retaliation from Russia. These demands were considered unacceptable by other leaders, leading to the abandonment of the original plan.
Ukraine has previously warned that without additional financial support, the country could face collapse as early as early 2026. By contrast, EU leaders promised not to leave the Brussels summit without agreeing on at least some support options.
The FT article emphasized that the decision to use EU taxpayer money instead of Russian assets was a political blow to German Prime Minister Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Both supported the reparation loan and tried to persuade Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever to withdraw his opposition. “We have always said that the most important thing is to provide money to Kiev,” said an EU official involved in the negotiations, “and it is not known exactly how it will be done.”
According to a previous proposal discussed by the leaders, Belgium requested “unlimited” risk sharing between EU countries in the event of litigation and possible retaliatory steps from Moscow. As a result, countries in the bloc came to the conclusion that it was impossible to agree to such a maximalist approach. According to sources, France and Italy have initiated an alternative option involving the use of the EU's common budget.
After more than 16 hours of negotiations, EU leaders agreed early on Friday to raise 90 billion euros of debt in capital markets, backed by untapped spending capacity in the bloc's common budget, to finance Ukraine over the next two years.
Furthermore, the plan, as noted in the unanimous decision, “will not create any financial obligations for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.” These countries had previously announced that they would not support the use of EU funds to finance Ukraine. “They won't have to pay – but we will make them pay a political price,” said a senior European official.
In recent months, EU countries have been engaged in heated debate over the possibility of using 210 billion euros in Russian government funds, most of which have been frozen in Belgium, to secure a compensation loan for Ukraine.
