The EU Council agreed on the documents necessary for the allocation of assistance to Ukraine

The Council of the European Union agreed on a package of legislative acts necessary to provide assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 18 billion euros in 2023, says in a council message.

The Council’s decision will be submitted to the European Parliament for adoption next week. The funds will be allocated in the form of loans with a grace period of 10 years. “The legislation that we adopted today means that Ukraine can count on regular financial assistance from the EU throughout 2023,” Czech Finance Minister Zbynek Stanyura commented on the decision.

November 24 MEP Roberta Metsola on Twitter informedthat the European Parliament approved a financial assistance package for Ukraine from the European Union in the amount of up to 18 billion euros for 2023. On December 6, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga during the open part of the meeting of the Economic and Financial Council in Brussels informedthat the country did not support amendments to the EU financial legislation, which would allow Ukraine to allocate the declared aid package. Then Stanyura asked the committee on economics and finance to find an alternative solution.

On November 18, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Budapest would not support the EU plan to provide a new financial aid package to Kyiv in its current form. Instead of a pan-European loan, the Hungarian prime minister suggested distributing the total amount that is planned to be allocated to Ukraine between the EU countries “proportionately and fairly”.

It is expected that the amount of 18 billion euros of loans and grants should cover about half of the Ukrainian budget deficit in 2023.