The European Union’s European Commission on Wednesday proposed a massive aid package for Ukraine worth 18 billion euros ($18.06 billion) meant to help cover the country’s budget deficit for 2023.
The €18 billion would be disbursed through loans throughout 2023 and would average about €1.5 billion each month. The US is expected to put up a similar amount as Ukraine has passed a budget with a $38 billion deficit, and the IMF estimates the Ukrainian government will need between $3 billion and $4 billion each month to get by.
But the EU’s proposed aid is facing resistance from Hungary. “I have made it clear that Hungary is ready to support Ukraine, but we do not wish to contribute to any new loan to be taken up by the EU,” Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
To send the money to Ukraine, the EU’s 27 members would need to jointly borrow the funds, and Kyiv would have 35 years to pay it back. Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said Hungary hasn’t agreed on the plan to jointly borrow the money.
European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said that he was working to alleviate Hungary’s concerns. “We will be discussing … what concerns Hungary has in relation to this proposal, and I hope we will come up with a solution,” he said.
The idea is that, at some point in the future, their investment will pay off. But will it?
Or maybe the idea is that it could prevent a higher cost in the proximate future?
Those that prompted the U.S. Invasion of Iraq claimed that war would pay for itself and was a good investment. The cost was in the trillions of dollars. Huge numbers of people died or were maimed. Countless children were left fatherless.
For what?
Not a bad point, I can’t think of any nation which would be tempted to copy that US action – the Russian invasion will however at some distant point in the future pay for it self if it is not sanctioned because it is supposed to lead to permanent annexation of lands of significant value.
But the thing I was getting at is that the losses for EU in the shape of having to house millions more refugees and having very much higher defense spending could be averted by funding the Ukrainians as long as they wish to fight for their right to exist.
The right to exist for the Ukrainians isn’t the problem. The right to oppress ethnic Russians was the problem.
The borders are not going back to what they were pre 2014 coup. The Ukrainian state forfeited those borders when the US backed coup sought to make non ethnic Ukrainian people second class citizens by denying them their human rights.
The Russian side disagrees with what you say, Putin himself has stated that Ukraine is a non country and they also
The Ukrainians have been treating their Russian speaking citizens so good that the Russians are comlaining that they were fighting ethnic Russian (speaking Russian) in the areas around Mariupol so not being treated so bad that they felt like welcoming the Russian ‘liberators’!
Yes. That’s what the Ukrainians are saying the Russians are saying. Along with a lot of other hooey.
Is this an argument and in that case what is it trying to establish?
Hey, isn’t this you, “Roger”? https://petapixel.com/2022/10/17/companies-are-using-photos-of-fake-staff-who-dont-exist/
Borrowing big bucks, from who/what? “Capital markets”, the linked article says. If it’s just a loan that will be paid back, why have the EU involved at all, Ukraine can just borrow directly from various speculative investors. What interest rate would the free market place on the risk for this debt, 1000%? Of course, not a penny will ever be repaid and Hungary knows it.
Interest? The privatization of any and all municipal entities. The eventual sale of everything else. A Fire Sale.
Seeing as how it’s the Davos club behind the Neocon aggression against Russia in their never ending quest peace, rules, and global hegemony, shouldn’t they foot the bill? Mark Zuckerberg could easily spare $18B, …Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, ….
Ursula von der Lying needs to be sent to the ICC. I realise she is not a Black African, and that no member of the DemocraticRich White West could possible be guilty of war crimes, but perhaps an exception could be made for this unelected Russophobe that even the German population did not want to give the job of President of the European Commission. Her dealings with Pfizer are already under investigation, but her slavish pandering to the Ukrainian circus of the Zelenskyy régime,using our money , and her denial of our right to access websites her “team” decided are propaganda from Russia, make a mockery of “our values” .