EU offers US$15b aid to boost Ukraine economy
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The European Union is ready to give Ukraine 11 billion euros (US$15 billion) in loans and grants over the coming years to help stabilize its economy, the head of the bloc’s executive arm said yesterday.
This is on top of US$1 billion in energy subsidies the United States pledged Tuesday. It will help support Kiev while it negotiates a bailout program with the International Monetary Fund.
The EU package is “designed to assist a committed, inclusive and reforms-oriented government in rebuilding a stable and prosperous future for Ukraine,” Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
The aid will include 1.6 billion euros in loans and 1.4 billion euros in grants from the EU budget and at least 8 billion euros fresh credit from financial institutions run by or controlled by the EU and its member states, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The package foresees helping to modernize Ukraine’s gas transit system and providing technical assistance ranging from judicial reform to assistance in preparing elections, the Commission said.
The package also calls for steps to accelerate achieving visa-free travel for Ukrainians to the EU.
That would go down particularly badly in Moscow, since Russia has sought visa-free travel to Europe for its citizen for years.
Suspending discussions on that project are among the measures EU leaders will consider at an emergency meeting today to punish Russia over its occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
The figure of US$15 billion for the EU’s aid package is the same amount that Russia was prepared to grant Ukraine in loans until President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted last month.
Yanukovich took the Russian loans instead of a trade and economic agreement with the EU, a move that fuelled the protests that led to him being ousted.
Ukraine estimates it needs US$35 billion in international loans over the next two years.
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