She says the EU wants to help Ukrainians to “equip them with the means to defend themselves and to lead peace negotiations from a position of strength.”
“Since pressure is the only language the Kremlin responds to, we can dial it up. We have to increase the costs of war for Putin’s aggression, and today’s proposal gives us the means to do this,” she says.
It would be funded through EU borrowing – raising capital on capital markets – and the use of cash balances from the immobilised Russian assets in the EU.
“We propose to cover all financial institutions that have accumulated such cash balances, and these institutions would have to move the cash into the instrument of the reparations loan. So in other words, we’re taking the cash balances, we’re providing them to Ukraine as a loan, and Ukraine has to pay back this loan if and when Russia is paying reparations,” she explains.
She says the funds will be used “predominantly” to produce and buy military support for Ukraine from Europe and the EEA countries, with occassional purchases “from the outside.”
Responding to Belgium’s continuing opposition to the plan, von der Leyen says the commission has “listened very carefully” to its concerns, and “have taken almost all of them into account.”
(Well, that’s not what Belgium’s foreign minister said earlier today, as we reported earlier at 12:02)
She says there will be “very strong safeguards” in place to make sure the funds are used in the right way, and to protect Belgium from any legal action.
